King's endgame
by SDoradus
Summary: Arc 8 of 8: What 20,000 Reapers did on their holiday. An ME Fic written a year before the "Mass Effect: Andromeda" trailer, this last arc of "Gone with the Sun" ends under way for Andromeda.
1. Duffer's fluff

King's Endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 100 **Duffer's fluff**

* * *

 _Little fluffy clouds_

In _Peacemaker's_ War Room, Garrus examined the new information from the reconnaissance tracks through the fluff.

"We've pretty much covered it all, sir. Nothing."

The primarch's holographic image stared at the same image, which was repeated in his own bank and bell on the Citadel. Another image, that of Hackett, looked on.

" _It beggars belief the enemy has not trapped and mined this cloud to kingdom come."_

"We've been thinking about that, sir. Czernykh and me."

" _And?"_

"Tarquin – that's our AI – pointed something out, Primarch."

" _You named him after my son?"_

"We think you should meet, at some point. Sir."

"… _Very well. Continue."_

"This fluff wasn't even in the stellar neighborhood till four million years ago. Proper motion's wrong."

" _So?"_

"So the singularity's been here two _billion_ years, Primarch. Reapers can't mine and trap every damn scrap of cloud that floats past, they'd run out of material too fast."

* * *

 _In the belly of the beast_

The core of a Reaper intelligence comprised a series of layered intelligences representing contributions from the highest-level ascended races over more than a billion years of evolution punctuated by extinction. There was no central processing unit, as such. Smart surfaces, forming part of the skin of each critical Reaper component, were logic components of Reaper 'brains' in the same way that retinas are of human neural tissue – and organized in microstructures of a similar scale.

Such "metamaterials" guide indoctrination of any unprotected brain remaining motionless, and too close, for too long, to sentient Reaper parts. However, infalling (and outgoing) rays are a prime hazard of 'life' near the event horizon of a black hole. Cosmic and gamma rays would destroy indoctrination logic gates, absent shielding - which shut logic down. And that in turn shut down indoctrination maintenance of on-board slaves, which itself required mitigation.

So Reapers near the horizon were long-lived, but by the standards of their kind inefficient and rather stupid, like a new recruit waking at 4am for drill. By now, though, the response and reconnaissance group had gradually pulled out of the singularity ergosphere. They were no longer so badly afflicted.

* * *

 _Someone's knocking at the door_

" _I still think sleeping Reapers would have left an observation post here,"_ remarked the Primarch.

Hackett spoke up: _"_ _Well I don't think one would do them any good."_

"Why not?"

 _"If it uses comm buoys to communicate, those are dead like anything else using a mass relay."_

 _"I see. Sentries would still be blissfully unaware."_

 _"Exactly. Besides, they're too late. After Shepard obliterated the Collector base around the black hole, Lawson had a brainwave. Cerberus was never able to implement it, but we can. Mikhailovich sent them a present. Should be arriving about now."_

* * *

 _Pushing the bellybutton_

Through blind luck the duty Reaper was one of those in the shadow of the singularity when the Red Flash struck. The capital Reaper had a plan to cope, of a sort, as the duty emergency responder; and a sudden collapse of QEC communication was serious, but not quite unprecedented. Response parameters were clear; _wake the frozen ones._

By now some of its skin processing units could be brought on-line. It had not yet, however, attempted to poll its neighboring Reapers. For one thing, that was not its job, and for some time it wasn't thinking straight. Besides, the responding Reaper didn't even know something had hit them. Those in a position to be aware of it, were dead – actually, still dying to an outside observer. Given the nature of space-time at the horizon, they always would be.

There had been twenty-thousand odd capital reapers representing all the ascended races since the Catalyst first gave its orders. Less a few hundred true deaths from some unusually advanced cycles, duty Reaper still believed all these could continue their eternal rest, till the event horizon met the cosmic horizon.

As Hackett suspected, it did not know only eight thousand were left, most of them clustered on the lee side of the event horizon, and close to it. So far as the duty responder was concerned, there was no question of waking _any_ , yet; it should be sufficient to wake a battlegroup destroyer frozen not in time, but in hydrogen ice, within the orbiting artificial planet.

But there was a problem. Only a handful of the quick-reaction forces on the black hole's satellite base were responding at all – incoherently; they seemed _stupid_.

On due consideration it woke a neighboring horizon destroyer. A slaughtership would also be woken, to provide artificial troops for ground truth. Just what prompted the degraded or lost QEC signals was not yet determined, but clearly, this cycle had got completely out of hand. Its message to the neighbors was simple: _Wake. Join me_.

* * *

 _Girl, interrupted_

If this was a stealth frigate, thought the N7 Commandant, the pilot sure as hell hadn't got the message. Breaking God knew how many rules, there was a double sonic boom as it transected the atmosphere above Rio. If it wasn't for one tiny little problem, he'd have lost no time in having the pilot interned. That problem was the emergency message on his private terminal, coupled with the personal omni-tool communication from the Admiral of the Fleet, no less.

" _Saber Three?!_ Councillor, just what if I may ask –"

A Saber alert over-rode every nitpicking regulation, so that didn't shock the commandant. Not being a complete fool, he had complied with the terms of the order, including bringing Commander Ashley Williams up to the jump pad, _then_ asking for clarification – but was disappointed:

" – You may not. And if you could, I would not be at liberty to tell you _…_ "

What _really_ got under his nose was the flat requirement to release a student from the N7 program to operations, _with immediate effect_. He _had_ intended protesting that in the strongest possible terms. The unceremonious arrival of a Council frigate with Sparatus, no less, descending the ramp was significantly dampening his ardor.

" _…_ Nonetheless, Commandant, thank you for the rapid response. Commander Williams, the Alliance High Command requests and requires your immediate attendance."

" _Pegasus_. Council business then," observed Ashley.

"Military operations, though. I regret that this vessel is not an Alliance ship, but the Admirals requested Council co-operation, ours is the fastest available and suitable ship, and _you_ are a Spectre. We are complying. Are you ready for immediate departure?

"Yes, Councilor. May I ask what awaits us at Arcturus?"

"We're not going there. _You_ are to report to Boris Mikhailovich; your squadron, to Archangel, Nemesis, then Dis. Ashley, the Admiralty says the Nest is live."

"Holy Mary, mother of God."

The commandant, not understanding any of this, broke in:

"Councilor, for ICA records, may I ask what has required withdrawing this N7 candidate from her course?"

"No."

* * *

 _B_ _oy_ _, interrupted_

No real-time QEC response existed from the Catalyst on the planet, either.

It was not that the pairs were broken; they still seemed active; but the only response from the controlling intelligence was glacially slow. As though it were running only on hardware down near the black hole event horizon's reference frame. That would mean _all_ the real-time Reaper population was non-functional. _Impossible_.

So the attention of the emerging Reaper was not on raising the still life at the event horizon, but on querying the Catalyst interface at the Citadel. Which was just as slow.

But one could tell it had been moved. Now _that_ was unprecedented.

* * *

 _We are the h_ _o_ _llow_

Meanwhile, Rasa was making her way to N-16 via _Peacemaker's_ DD flotilla. The crew bunks were if possible even more cramped than those on an SR-2 frigate, but she was struck by the uniformly high enthusiasm and commitment of the small-boat crews.

With Tarquin's assistance she eventually managed contact with Jana, in _Kilimanjaro_.

"Any progress?"

" _I'm in the med bay, reading Maelon's latest report. For the first time, he seems to think removal of the Salarian bridgework should come next."_

"But then Trevor and Lisa will be frothing-at-the-mouth pro-Reaper!"

" _Exactly. But he wants to persuade a Reaper to reverse them. From that he would find the pre-image – I mean, he'd work out the detail of the transformation."_

"He's dreaming. There's no way a Reaper is going to spend weeks reversing them just 'cos we rock up and ask them nicely."

" _True. We'd die. But I have in mind something else which could work. Suppose_ Shepard _rocks up. He wants them not to reverse Trevor or Lisa, but for the indoctrination algorithm, and suppose further that he_ doesn't _ask them nicely?"_

"Oooh. But different Reapers might have different indoctrination algorithms."

" _That's why we have to remove the bridgework. Let the Reapers see them."_

"Maybe we do it to just one? And keep them banged up in klink?"

" _Doing both would be more revealing. There's a problem, though."_

"Yeah. When Shepard's finished, Reapers will be extinct. It could take decades to understand what they were doing, just from analysis of Reaper corpses."

" _I know. But your friends are a pilot program for all the other indoctrinated."_

"We'd have to sneak them inside a Reaper, somehow. I just can't see it."

" _I suspect we'll have to freeze Trevor and Lisa until they're ready. You speak to Shepard. I've blotted my copybook with him. Get Chambers on side."_

* * *

 _Combined Arms_

Out of the black _North Cape_ and _Peacemaker_ emerged the following morning with instructions for the garrison commander on N-18.

Garrus strolled up to the Krogan in as nonchalant a manner as he could muster.

"Hey, fancy-face, what have you brought us to the arse-end of the cosmos for?"

"Now, now, Wrex, that would be Tuchanka, and the T-chain's got a ways to go yet."

"Funny bird. I've got the Void Devils powered up, also five fighter groups of Tridents, and the commander of bloody Artimec wing breathing down my neck."

"That's because there's word we can expect Oculus harassment units. We also have to wake up every damned _jawan_ and Chinese infantryman from their iceboxes, along with their missile batteries and artillery."

"That's a million troops!"

"Also, break out your babies from their tanks, this is about to get serious. We think."

"Finally! Do I get to dance on a Reaper's grave?"

"Wait for Javik. He isn't here yet. He's coming with Williams, on T'Soni's ship."

"Liara has a ship? And I see _you_ have a ship. Why don't _I_ have a ship?"

"I believe Hackett was heard to mutter something to Shepard's mom about _finesse_ being a pre-requisite. I'm sure we could loan you a second-hand dreadnought."

* * *

 _Reconnaissance_

Paranoia still reigned. The flotilla Admiral therefore dispersed the heavies of his fleet to several light-minutes out from N-16, in particular the dreadnoughts and carrier battle groups with their cruisers. Heavies were too weak to fight and too fat to run, but from there could battle stragglers, or loop through the dark to finish the second full-sized crucible.

Remaining smaller troop and frigate units were dispersed to the fringes from N-16. These could at least run down the relay chains, if not hide. So, at N-16-A through F there squatted squadrons of DDs led by a single non-stealth command frigate. Unlike the heavies, these conduit-capable ships were dozens and in one case hundreds of light years from the N-16 relay; but like the heavies, they could return to N-16 within minutes, even seconds – to bite in the rear any Collectors following a fleeing flotilla.

Provided, that is, the N-16 relay were powered up at all.

It wasn't.

It wouldn't be, till either Vakarian or Czernykh requested it. There was no word from them, not yet.

Till then, N-16 was the cork in the genie's bottle.

* * *

 _Jonah's smart bullet_

Emerging from the fluff, both frigates were fully stealthed. Nicolaev cursed quietly, adding: "Hell, this part of space is as black as the inside of a Reaper asshole."

Czernykh nodded. His pilot was expressing himself a little strongly, but there were very few stars visible, and some of those were nebulae millions of light years away. _Peacemaker's_ AI, Tarquin, came on TBS: this was a quite civilized machine, not so easily resorting to profanity:

" _You can just about see the end of the Orion arm poking out the fluff, behind us."_

Co-pilot's HUD lit with ship diagnostics, all blue. The Admiral's aide had rejoined them as the ship AI's mobile unit (not before time). The Admiral himself remained behind on _Kilimanjaro_ , now re-armed as a dreadnought with a mini-crucible paired with a conduit relay – never fired, even for testing. Czernykh hoped fervently it never would be. It was supposed to be broadly directional, but the impact on ship systems might well be horrendous.

Eva spoke up: "Commander, we could engage FTL and proceed to the black hole."

On the other hand, for his own ship things were looking up. While Eva assisted the Admiral on Arcturus, _North Cape's_ computer had reverted to the literal and limited understanding of a VI. Not that this was altogether bad: Eva's absence obliged crew to brush up on manual procedures – but there must be something to the notion that true AIs had an indivisible quantum focus. It was good to have Eva back.

"Anything on passive scans? Can we get a HUD display of the black hole's position, at least?"

Eva didn't even have to twitch. On the cockpit dash a lightly tinted glassine sheet extended up and a threat map sprang to life against the black, including a grey quivering dot representing the black hole's gravity wave source.

Garrus' voice came over TBS:

" _Scans negative. Follow us…"_ – and _Peacemaker_ flickered out of view.

"Good. Nicolaev, engage if you please."

…

"Coming up on dropping out of warp – What the hell?"

"Relax, Bogdan Pavlovich." He looked over at his co-pilot, now – oddly – dressed up in her green silks. He liked it. So did the rest of the crew. In work hours? Unusual.

"That was _another_ shock wave? Did we just pass a third ship in warp?"

"Not a ship, no. These interceptions were foreseen and planned for."

"You didn't answer the question." There was a brief silence.

"The Admiral says, you need to know. That was a solid shot impactor, which will arrive –" Both frigates abruptly exited FTL warp; "– moments after _we_ do."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #101, "Contact"_

* * *

Monday, September 7, 2015


	2. Contact

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 101 **Contact**

* * *

 _Long moments of boredom_

 _Pe_ _gasus_ _'_ AI was a little bewildering. Most of the ship AI's Ashley had met so far were very feminine in appearance, in conformance with the expectations of the majority of western cultures which predominated in the Alliance Fleet units.

Not Perseus. As he explained it, there was no choice in the matter – at the time one was ordered, all available mobiles were from the Alliance AI research labs, and though based on EDI's mobile were all male. Furthermore, asari frankly didn't care. Finally, the name for the AI had already been given, which predetermined the chosen gender.

"Gawd. Heck of a way to run a railroad, though."

"The naming process was a bit improvisational, yes."

She still had not worked out what role she was to play. Presumably she was on board for ground combat. She started looking in the crew deck for an available bunk.

" _Commander Williams, if you are looking for your quarters, Dr T'Soni has suggested that with the Councilor Sparatus occupying the port lounge, you might wish to set up in the XO's office, which she only uses sparingly in work hours."_

"That sounds fine. Just so long as those damned machines don't beep at me during what the military is pleased to call sleep."

So Liara found her there, two hours later, _in medias beep_.

"Ashley Madeline Williams. That terminal has an encryption schema which your omni-tool won't break inside the Hawking decay of the last black hole. That's ten to the power of a hundred years away."

"Damn. I'd get pretty bored. Even more than I am now."

"I'm sorry for the delay, Ash. I've been in conference in the war room listening to the Councilors stress over things they can do nothing about."

"Do I get to know why I was yanked out of school half way through the N7 course? The Councilor dropped a reference to Reapers but no more."

"Well… we think the Catalyst was a computational focus."

"Finally. Something to look for."

"Perhaps… Ashley, we do not know what it looks like. Only that it was in some sense the overmind of the entire Reaper collective."

"But it had a physical form, right?"

"Almost certainly. At least if you believe Jana and her asari friend, Jelize. To do its job it must incorporate a great many QEC pairs. Almost certainly in a crystal matrix."

"Wouldn't that be on the Citadel?"

"We found nothing remotely resembling that. We _did_ find a crystal cylinder with a comparatively small number of QEC nodes, coincidentally the same number as there are keepers on station at any one time. Plus eight more pairs in a module at one end."

"Oho. But that would be just one control module. We need the command focus. Did any of these nodes have an active pair?"

"Goodness. You're becoming quicker in your old age."

"Lordy, old at twenty-eight. Liara, I'm just nastier and more suspicious. Every day I understand Lawson a little more."

"Perhaps, but that was a very _Shepardian_ thing to say. And seven of the eight nodes were active, but running _extremely_ slow at the other end."

"We found a Collector with a slow QEC node, too. At Noveria, remember?"

"Vividly. Anyway, _o_ _ne_ of those seven was running at a nominal cyclic speed. The clear implication is that at least one of the uplinks was outside the Nest's event horizon, and probably goes to the Catalyst focus."

"Hm. Any others since?"

"It was perhaps one of several. There may have been, may still be, more of those."

"Well, keep looking."

"We think the next place to look is the Nest. Garrus' scans are so far negative."

"That's enough to pull me from the Villa? Just when I was beginning to enjoy it?"

"Shepard is going to the Nest, too. So is Lawson. Garrus is already there, engaging as we speak, with an Alliance frigate."

"Wait, _engaging_? There's a Reaper battle? Something came out of the Nest?"

"It's been a bit one-sided. No ship combat, the frigates are the only ones in contact, and they're all stealthed so far."

* * *

 _Pleadings_

"Brooks? Your name badge says I should be calling you Rasa – Where are you?"

"To the Alliance personnel roster I'm Rasa Lila. _You_ can call me whatever you want. I've transferred from _Peacemaker_ to some nameless DD. You're on Normandy again?"

"Got it. DD001, _Potemkin_. What are you up to now? You've a QEC link, obviously."

"It's some sort of flotilla leader. Vakarian has me teaching Maria how to fight dirty."

"Odd. That's for guerrilleros. What prompted such an exercise?"

"She got hurt. Some other officer's teaching her to fight clean. Can I ask a favor? I'd ask Kelly but–"

"Maybe. _Tell me what happened to Maria._ "

* * *

 _Seconds of terror_

Tarquin bonged the loft as _P_ _eacemaker_ left FTL and Garrus woke to find optical passive scans had picked up a huge planet, dozens of AU off. He began struggling down to the CIC and cockpit while the AI advised that from its orbit, the thing might be an eggshell, it had so little mass.

"It's _hollow?_ " Garrus found this difficult to assimilate.

"That would not be an unreasonable deduction."

"Spirits. Even so, begin closing with the singularity, Nyrek. Not _too_ close."

"General, _North Cape_ is out of FTL. She's behind us, two AU."

"She?"

" _North Cape_ is definitely a she, General Vakarian. Wait. There is somethi–" An actinic violet flash washed over the watching frigates and interrupted the conversation.

" _Cherenkov trace! Battle stations!"_ (Nyrek at least was on the ball.)

"Tarquin! What in the Empress' name was _that!?_ " (Garrus, humiliatingly, was not.)

"That, General, was the Cherenkov track of Zero. Nyrek, tell _North Cape_ I strongly advise we and _North Cape_ turn tail and run, FTL. Predicted impact one forty seconds."

Nyrek worked his display. " _…_ buster course set. Say again? What's this ' _zero_ '?"

"Mikhailovich's device. The asteroid equipped with an FTL. The solid impactor's warp channel is on its way to… the singularity, it seems. Uncivilized machine."

"Uncivilized? How do you work _that_ out? Nyrek, jump after the rear vidcam sees impact."

"General, _I don't want to be in the same star system when_ _that thing_ _hits something._ "

"I can relate," muttered Riley. Garrus blinked. It was unusual for a ship AI, and especially Tarquin, to express itself so forcefully. More unusual for Riley.

"You think it will? Hit something other than the black hole, I mean?"

"Yes! This is a Lawson invention!"

"Zero won't care _what_ it hits by now," declared Nyrek. "So long as the wait's _over_. I'm ready for jump."

"Very well. I'm asking for N-16 power-up. Keep thumb talon on the jump stud. Answer the question in a bit more detail, Tarquin."

"Zero has a turian VI warfighting system adapted by Russia for the Alliance _…_ "

"This is one of our disposable VIs, right? Much joy at giving its all for the empire?"

"For Russia," observed Nyrek. "Vakarian, it would have had to watch old human westerns and sing old human songs for the last five weeks."

"An anti-rampancy measure," noted Tarquin. "Specifically, the Russians supplied an Alliance cultural library, notably unlicensed _Mickey Mouse_ , _Die Hard_ , and similar old Hollywood movies."

"Things Happen to rights-holders who sue outside a Russian court," snarked Riley.

"They tried that on Lawson and briefly wished they hadn't. But Riley is quite correct. The library incorporated material whose copyright extensions were not recognized by Russian law so could be copied for the VI. Treaty rights were a non-issue…"

"Been there. Done that. Got the bloody T-shirt and ripped its neck. Besides, I'd bet they're all out of copyright by now. Your point, Tarquin?"

"We had a brief QEC conversation weeks ago, _before_ FTL would change our reference frames drastically. Mainly so _Zero_ could transfer copies of persona and logs, but it became very clear that _Zero_ is suicidal by design."

" _Heh_. The last thing I heard before it entered FTL, was _Zero's_ nameless VI giving a particularly bad karaoke rendition of something about _Give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the skies are not cloudy all day,_ " declared Nyrek. _"_ I'd be suicidal too if that's all I'd been listening to for weeks."

"Quiet, Nyrek. Tarquin, seriously, what do you know that I don't?"

"General, you recall proposing to Shepard to cut the drive before an FTL collision?"

"I do. For an impulse impactor? My idea was shot down. Unorthodox procedure."

"The human Admiralty approved this shot. _Sp_ _lendid_ test of a black hole target. This one time, there's no collateral damage. Impulse would have probative value."

"Okay. But surely then, this Zero isn't photon-radiant? Why are we worried?"

"Oh, there will be plenty of radiance. A turian VI has target discretion and the emerging Reaper will be marginally in the way of the singularity horizon. There we go, _Zero_ has dropped warp. One and a half million kilometres from target–"

But it wasn't, not quite. In the time it took Tarquin to speak that, the _Zero_ impactor hit the emerging Reaper on the way to the horizon.

* * *

 _Charges_

Brooks was disinclined to report second-hand details of the pirate conflict:

"…Maria won't tell me and no two people had a consistent account. Ask Vakarian, he knows something. Get Kelly to speak to Maria–"

"That's do-able, I suppose."

"–but not why I'm calling. If you can believe it, Jana's asking if we can keep a Reaper alive."

"That's a strange ask, Brooks!"

"Jana says, for de-indoctrination purposes. I realize ex-Cerberus people are low on friends…"

"I'm not."

"… and doing radical things–"

"That's why they're low on friends."

"–but it might work, and it's important to millions, and you've been radical too."

"No kidding. Still a bit premature. What's _your_ interest in this?"

Brooks sighed. This was hard work. "Shepard, you've met Jana, Trevor and Lisa. From the old Cerberus. I never knew them that well, but they at least are still alive."

Shepard considered her holographic representation a few seconds. He did not normally associate this person with any kind of altruism, and as for Jana…

" _Please_ , Shepard. If there's any chance…"

…but she had used the magic word.

"No guarantees, Brooks. But I'll bear it in mind."

* * *

 _S_ _pecial Weapons And Tactics_

When _Zero_ came out of FTL the emerging Reaper – which, it later transpired, called itself _Occultor_ – had begun reducing thruster power, since its time dilation was essentially zero by this point. Preparing its own FTL warp drive would take time.

The Reaper capital ship managed in ten seconds to analyze its surroundings and instantly instructed the limited brain on the slaughtership to proceed to the new gas cloud and search for inhabitants to be ascended.

Next, on acknowledgment by the slaughtership, _Occultor_ updated its neighbor beginning to stir from the horizon, and asked it to wake a few more Reaper capital ships. Then it turned its attention to the destroyer. But it barely managed to open a channel before sensors detected extreme ultraviolet shock radiation from the spinward quadrant, as _Zero_ entered the system, dumped warp at 0.999987c, and the musical VI discovered a juicy target of opportunity between itself and the main singularity.

The destroyer heard its lord and master communicate the Reaper equivalent of _What the f–_ beginning just two and a half seconds before a wide black solid asteroid, foreshortened relativistically to a thin disk, hit the central two thirds of its structure. So cataclysmic was the impact that nearly all of _Occultor_ was separated into its component _quarks_. Which then rejoined following the usual strong nuclear rules, dumping their excess energy into space as high-energy photons.

Even the sensors on _Peacemaker,_ scurrying out-system, were temporarily blinded. _North Cape_ , standing well off the system's edge, was better off. The destroyer, badly gamma-fried, stopped to begin repairs, and sent an emergency advisory by asymmetric QEC to the few Reapers stirring from the event horizon: _Here be dragons_.

The destroyer's antispinward skin was numb. It estimated it would remain so for the next ten hours. It would not have ten hours, but there was plenty of drama to come.

In its own foreshortened reference frame, the turian VI 'died' before it could finish the _-oam_ in _roam_ , and far too soon to transmit back its VI focus. But its terminal guidance role was complete.

Most of the asteroidal mass-energy continued to the black hole's event horizon, now mere seconds away in its own reference frame, and quite rapidly spaghettified into the singularity, whereupon the black hole's event horizon suddenly expanded: well over a quadrillion megatons TNT-equivalent of mass-energy, amounting to 6 x10³º kg, entered the singularity, the impulse staggering its center of gravity.

Most importantly, this ended up dooming all but a tiny remnant of those Reapers left by the Red Flash, to eventual spaghettification on encountering the naked singularity.

It would have taken the doomed a while to realize this.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #102, "Skirmishes"_

* * *

Monday, September 7, 2015


	3. Skirmishes

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 102 **Skirmishes**

* * *

 _Pounding Vacuum_

By the time _Peacemaker_ and _North Cape_ finally returned to the N-18 relay, the damage to the rear video camera had been repaired. Of all the participants in the ground discussion at the fort around the relay, only Wrex was in favor of an immediate return:

"Pansies."

"All very well for you to say, Wrex, there's no ground in a black hole for you to fight on."

"Wasn't there a planet?"

"It's there, we're calling it Dis, but it's freezing and dead. Although there were passive scans showing thermal blooms just before Mikhailovich's bloody Zero blew the capital Reaper into a gluon gas."

"I _want_ one!"

"We've got mini-zeroes on a revolver in the loading bay."

Garrus' omni-tool bleeped at him. He began checking his messages.

"… _Damn._ Shepard says not to shoot in that mode without clearance. Mikhailovich gave clearance for Zero only because _nothing_ comes out of a black hole to ruin someone's day two or three aeons from now."

"… _they_ just want to keep the button-pushing all to themselves."

"And that pushes _your_ buttons, I know. All in good time, Wrex. We'll get to use 'em. Now if you'll excuse me, we've made repairs from that blasted Reaper flash. Against my better judgment, we're heading back out."

"The paint on the tail fins is blistered."

"Do tell. That's tinted fused corundum, not paint. We'll survive till drydock."

"If I hand over to this irritating Chinese general who calls me a primordial barbarian toad, can I come?"

"We had a pool on when you'd get around to asking. Shepard wins, confound it."

"And you expected what?"

"Fine. We have a button just for you, Wrex."

* * *

 _S_ _p_ _aghetti à la Russe_

The residual Reapers would have received the _RECALL/EMERGENCY_ alert from the destroyer in non-dilated space microseconds before the event horizon rose – too late for most of them. Around twenty managed to power away from the suddenly expanded event horizon: most, however, were caught at least partially. That an enemy might cause the horizon's discontinuous stagger had not been anticipated by any Reaper. No previous cycle had attempted it.

The effective range of orbits which gave significant time dilation was passing narrow, even for an intermediate mass black hole, so many had their 'focus', receptacle of consciousness, lowered to within millimetres of the horizon. These instantly had their QEC links cut off from power. Such lobotomized Reapers collapsed.

What remained were barely aware of doom at first, although a hellish radiation wash would have registered as the horizon passed. Milliseconds would be needed, in their focus' proper time – hours, in ours – to realize that they could not pull away from the singularity, and the only way they would have known _that_ would be from deviations of their spacing among themselves from what was predicted. Reapers which found themselves only partially within the event horizon might just be able to escape by jettisoning armor, legs and priming chamber, but the resulting damage – especially from radiation – doomed them as effectively if they had been swallowed

A thousand generations on, observers from flat space, had they visual superpowers, would still see the delayed light of their frozen status at the edge of the event horizon. (Actually, doing the calculation, no photons of that freeze would escape after second or so, but the principle is sound).

Yet in their own proper time, the Reapers entered the spaghettification phase, being pulled apart at the molecular level, around half an hour later.

We can only guess at their thinking. It is known that the double dozen which _did_ pull out could at first barely function. They could hardly compute impulse trajectories for the ascent to flat space. Computational resources were overwhelmed by the consequences of losing over a billion years of effort, and the end of twenty thousand archived, ascended, intelligent races.

It would take surviving Reapers days at least to get out. The blinded destroyer frantically pinged the Catalyst QEC. All it got back was one word, which being interpreted, said: _Surrender_.

This was clearly some sort of malfunction.

Meanwhile the slaughtership, following its last instructions, began patrolling and scanning the fluff interior. A day later, its VI noticed the magnetokinetic bow wave of the N-18 planet, Archangel, as it moved through the dust.

It began following the shock wave to its apex.

* * *

 _Making_ _lots of_ _p_ _ie_ _ce_ _s_

 _Peacemaker_ and _North Cape_ arrived on-station at N-18 before a dozen of Admiral Mikhailovich's favourite DD destroyers, about fifteen minutes before the slaughtership began expelling clouds of Oculus fighters to assert local aerospace superiority.

The frigates went through first, stealthed, so were able to let the intercepting destroyers know what they and the fighters rising from the N-18 fort were facing. Then the DDs closed on the slaughtership.

 _"Vakarian, we're not going reach the rally point in time. It will have dropped a couple of hundred thousand husks of species past, in the time it takes us to get there."_

"What about the fighters? They were outnumbered?"

 _"Only just, they and Boris' destroyers are making mincemeat of the attacking Oculi. That pressure's off, but the slaughtership's landing husks."_

"Oculi are the DDs job, our visible fist. The slaughtership is hovering? Stationary?"

 _"For now. It'll move when it finishes dropping a husk army."_

"We engage the slaughtership and destroyer from stealth. One FTL round, each. As quickly and as simultaneous as we can make it. Captain (D)?"

" _Aye, aye, General?"_ This was a Russian voice commanding the destroyer flotilla, a distinctive accent even through the auto-translator net. Interesting.

"Disengage on our mark. We'll try to zap the bad guys while they're still as a rock. Czernykh, you tell Eva to slay that bloody destroyer before it goes after the DDs."

" _Acknowledged."_ Czernykh was fascinated to observe Eva's mobile licking her lips in nervousness. Implications of basing the mobile's AI architecture on human neural maps clearly ran deep.

On cue, _North Cape_ took out the destroyer from stealth with a blinding radiant FTL missile. The destroyer's attendant escorting Oculi were stunned by the FTL radiant flash, too. Flotilla DDs turned back and finished them after a fifteen-minute dogfight.

There had been fleet actions which accounted for Reapers before, beginning with Sovereign. Shepard himself had arranged for a thresher maw to kill a destroyer just like this one, had targeted another for the guns of an entire fleet, and brought down a third with a Thanix missile battery from point-blank range.

But all those were desperately close-run things. This, then, was the first ship-to-Reaper combat triumph not attributable to one particular man, but routinely performed. Czernykh felt his ship had made history, told her she was a hero, and saluted.

Lastly, _North Cape's_ gunnery chief sliced the Reaper destroyer's main brain in little pieces with her Thanix cannon. Eva could have done this herself but just supplied targeting data.

She must have been concerned, even so; her mobile was biting its lower lip.

* * *

 _Making a great peace_

 _Peacemaker_ got the slaughtership – easier, but far from trivial – fractionally later:

"Oooh, can I?"

"The button is here Wrex. Ready on my mark. Ten seconds."

"This will be _so_ cool. Are we taking pictures?"

"Three. Two. One. _MARK._ Let's give _them_ Reaper tactics!"

A new sun shone for two seconds above N-18.

It wasn't clear whether either the slaughtership or the destroyer got off a distress signal, but Eva and Tarquin doubted it.

The troops emerged from bunkers, cheering. This changed to cries of alarm as the first, slightly singed, husk waves of a two-hundred thousand strong army threw themselves on the fort perimeter.

But the perimeter was fifty kilometres in diameter. Because it housed a million of _Zhukov_ 's combat infantry. The Chinese and Indian troops inside suddenly realized that they _outnumbered_ the peculiar husks, mostly looking like collectors, five to one.

Most husks were shot or bayoneted with omni-blades. Marauder types were on the receiving end of fire from snipers who heavily outnumbered them. Those roughly resembling cannibals were never seen for the number of their executioners.

All this was caught on Chinese newsreels. " _This_ is my kind of war!" – said the Chinese general. She was whooping like Patton.

* * *

 _Making a_ _small_ _peace_

 _Potemkin's_ QEC hologenerator was rather low-resolution, but Maria instantly recognized Shepard's friend when she stepped into the field of view.

"Lieutenant? Nurse Chambers? You wanted to speak to me?"

Kelly considered the formality of this gambit for half a second and responded: "Ensign. Cede the scan volume to the officer watching over you, please."

Maria glanced to her right and moved out of the field of view. The DD flotilla commander was just in time to see the nurse move out and be replaced by _…_

"Captain Shepard? What is–"

"Commander Romanov. Pay close attention. For your zeal in assuring the safety of Ensign Maria you are to be commended. Your chaperoning of said ensign's private conversations, however, is emphatically not desired and will cease forthwith. Clear?"

"Captain, I must protest!"

"You may protest to your Admiral. Bear in mind he will have _my_ report, also."

* * *

 _Three weeks_

In _Orizaba's_ war room above N-16, Shepard, EDI, Chambers, Tali, Lawson, Bryson, Vega, and Coats watched slow-motion video of first, the impactor strike on the Capital Reaper (which had burned out the central CCD sensors of _Peacemaker's_ rear vidcam); second, enhancement of the red glow as the singularity expanded–

"How the hell did they get that picture?" Vega clearly didn't believe it.

"Clever Eva. The ship AI. She FTL-jumped _North Cape_ to a point just after the gluon flash had passed, but just before Zero dove inside the event horizon."

"Quick thinking there," observed Coats. Bryson was less impressed:

"Neither really showed a lot of detail. What damage to the Reapers, then?"

"Anneliese, you have to remember that flash blistered Garrus' tail _out beyond the orbit of Saturn_. And it burned out the camera, he's fixing it now."

"Only Dad called me that. I'm Ann, Tali. Look, never mind the burned-out vid, we didn't see _anything_ special with the black hole."

"It it hadn't already cleared the space around itself, you'd have seen radiation as matter was eaten. But you're right, that was a waste of time. However, we still have the stealth satellites at the pole – here's the animation of the gravity wave detector."

Bryson watched the computer reconstruction of the outward pulse. Her attention was caught by little ripples just outside the gray circle representing the event horizon:

"What are those funny disturbances _there_?" Shepard and Tali stared closer.

"Keelah. Shep, that's like the initial trace of the Reaper coming out of deep orbit."

Vega nodded, slowly. "Yah. But there's a shitload more of them." They looked glumly at the death surging from the event horizon, till EDI looked up:

"No. This is _good._ Don't you see? They're all coming in a cluster. This is all that's left, these live ones must have been in the shadow of the singularity when the Red Flash passed. That and Zero reduced the threat by three orders of magnitude. More!"

"Even so, EDI, there's at least ten traces there, probably that much again."

"Better tell Mikhailovich," said Miranda, who'd conceived Zero but wasn't proud.

"Can ten Reapers, or even twenty, menace the Citadel?"

Shepard considered this. "No. We'd have their collective ass. But maybe at the cost of half the fleet. And there's still the problem of the fake planet. How long have we?"

"Three days? Weeks? Kill both sets before they're all together and coming out."

"Anne, my dear, you are truly a bloodthirsty minx."

"These are worse than the things who killed my father, and indoctrinated me. Slay them all." But she calmed down when Kelly put a hand on her shoulder.

* * *

 _Plan A_

Shepard's report to Boris discussed options for reducing the threat, but did not recommend any particular one. For that, he wanted a face-to-face meeting, which meant traveling to N-16.

"Captain, would you make this quick, I need to get the flotilla heavies to the frozen planet. Somethings waking up there, and others gradually climbing out of the hole."

"Wait, sir. You have the bubbles, One and Two, due in three days. Go then."

"Might be too late. But I can tell the nuke, One, to stop for orders at N-18."

"Tali projects the ones from the hole only get out hours before you fire the crucible and the bubbles. We can keep Reapers occupied till then, chasing ghosts with stings."

Boris shook his head. "I don't want to fire a mini-crucible for the first time on my flagship, never mind near a relay chain, except maybe the last in the chain; and _Kilimanjaro_ has my main command post."

"Then keep _Orizaba_ forward, hidden the way you planned earlier, off N-18, idling, minimum crew. Get it to fire the mini-crucible, when the fort and N-18 relay have Archangel's mass between them and the flash. Leave _Kilimanjaro_ here."

Mikhailovich looked thoughtfully at his ground commander. "Ghosts with stings. Your mother thought like that. A good tactician."

"She'd be proud to hear you say that, sir. Can I make another suggestion?"

"Speak freely."

"Take _Orizaba_ near the Nest and fire it there. We don't know what it will do, but even if it fries the ship as well as the Reapers, it's a comparatively small price to pay."

"The crew might not think that. But I can see how it helps if all the Reapers wake."

"Crew her exclusively with zero-implant personnel. Fabricate some layer-1 survival gear. Shunt everything layer-three and run the systems off the attomechanical layer."

"I doubt we can dispense with layer-3. Just that ship?"

"Just the one ship. The cruisers would be a problem, take them with _Kilimanjaro_ away from the Nest. Everything heavy including at least two frigates and some destroyers, hides out beyond the N-16 side branches."

The Admiral approved of this. "We keep destroyers back as reserve and escort. Others for close aerospace support on the N-18 fort, like this recent struggle. Get a full two squadrons up the chain from the Citadel if it looks necessary. Fire _Orizaba's_ crucible last thing, on autopilot. Everything else escapes through N-18 first."

"That could work. But…"

"…No plan survives contact with the enemy. Even so, a good outline. Dismissed, Captain."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #103, "Engaging"_

* * *

Tuesday, September 8, 2015


	4. Engaging

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 103 **Engaging**

* * *

 _Itty bitty firecrackers_

Coats was on fire. "We've got at most three weeks before those silly bastards haul their arses out of the event horizon."

"That's a rude word, sir."

"Concise OED, _'not in polite usage since the seventeenth century.'_ I'm not being polite to them. Let's get these squibs laid, my delicate flowers."

"You want a track heading to the fluff, sir? Some at the far end, too?"

"Right, but not directly at Archangel. Get with the welding, and the glue and the rock, ladies. Make these tubes look like debris. Especially the big ones that move."

One German marine wondered out loud, "Vy vould Reapers make themselves so vulnerable, Admiral? Black holes are _dangerous_."

"Because they compute, they don't think, is one guess. They've cataloged everyone else's innovations and never thought of their own. Maybe because they think they're above anything we can do. Who knows? Who cares?"

As the work parties saluted and fell out, Ann hissed at him, low: " _I_ care."

"Why? Idle curiosity?"

"I'd like to think about what surprises they might have – like, if this planet's an eggshell, let's make a hole. Tomorrow, I want to see what's inside."

"Shepard wanted the same thing, but it's too dangerous."

" _You_ don't want to know?"

So on reflection, Coats called back one of the teams. "I'd like to call for volunteers. Can we have one Big Ivan on the surface of the fake planet, please?"

There was a certain amount of shuffling of feet, but the magic name of Shepard got a UK tech, the German marine, and some Krogan volunteers. Just as well, this would involve heavy lifting. Once the logistics were in place, Coats turned back to Bryson:

"We've still got a few surprises of our own. I just want to get this over with and get Leviathan to help remove that weird takeover stuff."

"Look, James, Psi Tophet's all the way across the galaxy. It's going to be decades before we can confront Leviathan and get some clues on reversing that blasted indoctrination stuff. I've accepted I'll have to live my life a bit deranged, like Jana."

"You might just be the most together person I know. Besides, a certain amount of eccentricity is expected of an English country baroness. Especially one with a PhD."

"Nonsense. Stop trying to save me. Let's take the time to do a proper job here."

* * *

 _First impressions_

The short message to Shepard seemed to have had the desired effect. Maria was at last of a mind to concentrate effectively on workouts in the loading bay.

Her pupil was especially good with Rasa's Fairbairn knife _('It's like a form of dancing –_ _the blade moves straight and I move around it_ _')_. Unfortunately Maria needed the lead weights adjusted in the (non-original) Applegate hilt.

Accordingly, Rasa organized one of the _Potemkin_ engineers to fabricate a V-42 "Devil's brigade" style force dagger – also with an Applegate handle. Now it was a suitable weight and balance, Maria was becoming quite deadly, in any of throwing, stabbing, or hiltwork. At the end of the day, Rasa took her to the war room.

"I thought you would be showing me how to shoot your Suppressor pistol, Rasa."

"No. Your most likely problems will arise unexpectedly, up close, and personal. You beat them by being even more unexpected, up close, and personal, and _quicker_ about it. Just keep that little toothpick out of sight, okay? Now, once Toombs finishes with my Suppressor and gets you one too, using a holdout pistol is Romanov's department–"

Maria abruptly stopped walking.

"–What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

They stared at each other in silence for half a minute.

"Well, _fine_. I had to talk to Kelly and she spotted the captain was hovering. Then Shepard spoke to him. Don't know what was said but Peter was close to tears."

"Good! Sounds like he deserved it. But we'll have to find another officer–"

But Maria was shaking her head, and clearly very unhappy. Rasa paused, working it out over the next few seconds: "You don't want another officer."

"I wouldn't mind another officer. But…"

"Have you spoken to Chambers about this?"

"Not in detail. She made it clear I mustn't have anything to do with him."

"Did she say why?"

"No! She seemed to think it was obvious!"

"Maria, it _is_ obvious. You're a junior officer under his command. Even I know that makes you untouchable to him, _and vice versa_. Surely you see this."

But Maria just stood there, eyes cast down at her interlocked fingers.

"Damn. Now I'm going to have to introduce you to someone I'd hoped not to."

* * *

 _Oh how the thresher maw turns_

Wrex began to regret volunteering. He hated Dis for creeping him out. It was a sort of anti-Tuchanka. It was cold, and dark, despite the new orbiting fusion lights, the marine in charge reminded him too much of Shepard, and his krogan squadmates ribbed him unmercifully about doing what the turians had done.

"Not the same. Ve are not burying it stealthily. Is Coats-befehl. Ve do it."

"He's right, dammit. We came, we planted nuke, we go. _Move_ , princesses."

"We know a planet-cracker when we see one. All of us saw the vids of Noveria."

"Bah, it's not a proper fight. On the other hand, if Shepard wanted it done…"

"I reckon it'll _end_ one before it begins," Wrex growled. "You're complaining because it's _unfair?_ "

"Where's the fun?"– this was the UK tech sergeant.

"It's right over the biggest thermal bloom. It'll be entertaining enough."

"Do _you_ feel good about just planting a great big bomb?"

"I'd feel better if I didn't know Joker had his finger on the button as we speak."

That got their attention. They moved with alacrity. Of course, EDI had a beady eye on Joker. Wrex found himself trying to remember if he'd ever pissed off the AI.

…

 _Watch the birdy_

Thirty hours later, some of the battle ground was prepared. Not before time, thought Shepard. The gravity waves, detected by the singularity's polar satellites, ominously, were increasing in intensity.

And Ash had arrived with Liara on _Pegasus_. Just in time. She'd holed up in the XO's office, despite Shepard offering her loft back: " _No. I don't need it. Take your yeoman and be happy for a change, you silly man."_ Kelly was not, of course, his yeoman any more. But hey… it seemed to make the boat happy.

Boris Mikhailovich, appearing as a QEC hologram from his station on _Kilimanjaro_ , wasn't happy.

" _They've spotted something. Those reactor blooms in Dis? They show 80% power."_

"It'll all be happening impossibly fast from the singularity point of view."

" _Even so. Zap the fortress planet. Deal with forces in detail."_

"You told me not to, earlier. "Don't shoot till you can see the whites of their eyes," wasn't it?"

" _Let's make it, shoot when the eyes open just a slit."_

* * *

 _Hurry up and wait_

The bubbles turned up on schedule and stopped, as required.

What hadn't been anticipated was how long it would take them to stop _after_ exiting FTL. Their sheer momentum took them two hundred thousand kilometres before thrusters brought them to a stop, and it took a day to backtrack to Archangel.

Mira and the turian VI (' _Blackbird_ ') appeared at the secondary QEC station in _Normandy._ Shepard's first question was for Mira, the smartest available VI, somewhat upgraded and running bubble " _One_ ".

"Can you enter FTL again?"

"I'm a little low on Helium-3. But yes."

"We'll have some down the chain on freighters in two days. Can you do a short jump? From the fluff to Dis? The planet around the singularity?"

"Not without notice. About twenty minutes, and the transit time is six days at least."

"Our frigate could do the same trip in less than half a day."

"For a mass this size the Alcubierre warp channel needs time to establish itself, and I've only been given a standard eezo core to obtain the Casimir energy."

"…All right. Twenty minutes startup is fine. We'll get you both within striking range of planet Dis, I think day after tomorrow."

"Very well."

"Now for a critical issue. Don't you have a life support chamber for the techs who installed the bomblets – the Lithium Deuteride, the heavy paraffin, and the pits?"

"Yes. It was not worth removing on completion. But, Spectre, it is quite small, for no more than two hundred people in comfort."

"Okay. What about empty spaces?"

"There are quite large channels between the heavy paraffin volumes, accessible from the life support chamber. But there is a good vacuum there."

"For suited personnel, would they be suitable?"

"I would not think so. There is no extra oxygen. But there is room for several thousand personnel, and there are six external hatches for maintenance. I suppose it's an option."

"We will organize some oxygen, and power modules, for 'in case.' Stick around. _Blackbird_ , are you ready to restart?" – this to the VI for the other bubble, _"Two"_.

"Like Mira said, I would need notice. But I carry significantly less mass. Five minutes would serve."

…

 _From the Books_

In _Orizaba's_ loft that evening, Coats and Bryson spoke soft and low.

"Tell me about those tiny little paper books. They've got _Ex Libris Lt.-Col. James Coats (Bart.)_ on the flyleaf, but they're _ancient_. Like that one, it's _tattered._ "

" _D_ _efence of D_ _uffer's Drift?_ It belonged to my umpty-great grandfather. Same name as me. Same rank. Not unusual in old families. I'm just dipping into the thing."

"Oh, sure. Come on James, you've been studying it for two weeks. What's the fascination?"

"It's a book on the interpretation of dreams, in a way. _Subaltern_ dreams." The look Ann gave him was so smoldering it could have burned toast. Coats grinned:  
"Bullseye. Fine, you've dipped into it. So you know what it is. Compare it with _781_."

"You think there will be ground fighting on Dis. Yet you tell troops _'Who cares?'_ "

"That planet's got something on it, yes. Can't be worried sick about the troops."

"Hypocrite–"  
"At last, I am worthy of my forefathers."  
"–you _do_ care about the troops, or you wouldn't be reading those books."

"For heaven's sake, don't let the troops know. It's a problem, yes. But _I'm_ going to be in space. The worry is if _Orizaba_ has to evacuate the troops it drops on-planet."

"You can't cram a million troops in here."

"Not a million. We'll be carrying two short regiments of marines. We can do that because we're running the ship with a skeleton crew and VIs."

"That's what, about five thousand élite troopers?"

"Some are techs. There's minifreighters for the remainder. Most of them are back in cold storage on _Massena_ , anyway, running off behind a rogue planet."

"So how do they get to the freighters from that Dis place? Or from Archangel?" This gave Coats pause. It wasn't that the problem hadn't occurred to him:  
"I guess the answer is, that this ship would have to pick them up again."

"And if the _Orizaba's_ disabled because of the Crucible?"  
No immediate response. Ann sighed, and laid her head on his chest. He began stroking her hair.

"I prefer to worry about things as they happen. You're an exception."

"Will the Leviathans listen? What do they care about some damaged human?"

" _I_ care. So do other people I know. We've learned a lot about their indoctrination technique. The Reapers cribbed their methods, and we have the Leviathan artifacts. We can shield ourselves now. If they won't listen to you, there's me, or Shepard, or Vega."

"Sounds ominous."

"Any which way, God help the Leviathans if they so much as look at you cross-eyed."

* * *

 _Blink and you'll miss it_

Shepard had a difficult night. The boy was back, saying nothing. The QEC pow-wow the following morning included Hackett as well as Mikhailovich. Hackett provided anodyne details about Hannah's home life, then got straight to business.

" _Take that snapshot of Dis. Nuke the planet. I think we whack that beehive. What forces have you?"_

" _Orizaba_ , with mini-crucible, Coats commanding. That may be a one-shot. Her two cruisers guarding N-18. I'd like some of your destroyers."

But Mikhailovich shook his head at this. _"You'll have twenty-four destroyers arriving through N-18 starting half an hour from now._ _More_ _will take half a day to_ _organize_ _._ _Maybe the turians, but w_ _e need to cover Nemesis and Archangel."_

"Then there's the frigates. I've got _Normandy_ , _North Cape_ , _Pegasus_ stealthed above the fluff, Garrus on _Peacemaker_ …"

" _Vakarian, yes. He is the forward tactical coordinator for flotilla actions?"_

"Yes, sir. There's also _Overlord_ , which is a bit of a loose cannon. Mercenaries."

" _Don't you trust them? AD, I mean?"_ Hackett now looked uneasy.

"I used to think I understood them. Now, I don't know."

" _Flash the Big Ivan, regardless. Don't use the mini-crucible unless you have to."_

"We might be overwhelmed."

" _You know you'd get not just the Reapers but yourselves. Around a black hole, that could be bad news."_

Around a black hole… Shepard found himself pondering this.

" _Captain, one more thing."_ Hackett looked thoughtful, now. "Sir?"

" _Get Allers set up with QEC links."_

"Al-Jilani's on _Overlord._ "

" _Her too. It's time we told the galaxy what's happening."_

"I'll get her to show the opening shot live."

In fact, he approached Allers to press the button, on-camera ( _"Just for Bekenstein."_ ) This got him a hot smooch, which (to her annoyance) irritated Kelly. Diane glanced sideways at her and grinned happily:

"Get used to it, kid. He's property of all the worlds, now."

A slightly aggrieved Kelly castigated herself for being upset: this was just high spirits. But there was no denying that she'd prefer any sharing to be on her initiative, and a lot less inclusive than 'all the worlds'. When had that changed?

* * *

 _Ground state_

There was a Reaper battle group inside the eggshell planet, kept to within a microdegree of zero Kelvin. At such temperatures Reaper hardware had very long life indeed. But there was a price to be paid for this alternate form of time travel.

Rising from absolute zero, crystal fracture made the alert and revivification process decidedly problematic, not least from the point of view of thermal inertia but mainly because thermal shock of a reactor starting in the normal way would shatter structural members. Nonetheless, after some days, the destroyers, slaughterships, and capital ship within were finally at the point of bringing their main reactors on-line.

The capital ship, which had first received the QEC alarm but had no details, came on-line first. It brought its reactor up to nominal power and released its clamps.

* * *

 _Flash_

"… It's _moving._ "

Allers jumped like a small child being told a ghost story. Her camera pulled back. Indeed, there was perceptible motion in the war room's bank and bell tac simulation.

"That's what we're waiting for. Hit it, Diane. The big red button."

She slammed her hand on the haptic panel way faster than was needed. The slight orange thermal bloom in the holo of the eggshell planet was replaced by a red sear.

"Well done. You can stick around here or go set up in the lounge now."

"I can always celebrate later?"

"That place has a view which is no simulation."

"Right, I'm gone." Shepard left, too. At this point he was going to be needed at the CIC. When he got there, he met a surprise: Kelly at the comm board–

"Where's Alexei?"

"Jumping up and down like a mad thing in the port lounge, says surveillance."

"Fine. What are you doing here? Belay that, are you up to speed on this board?"

"John, please. Remember who you're talking to."

"Right. I want the bank and bell echoed through to the galaxy ma– That was quick. Where's Tali?"

"Covering for Adams in Engineering."

"Tell her I want her, Gabby or Adams up here to tell us what we're looking at."

"Adams is in the lounge straightening out a media storage conflict between EDI and Allers. Uh, Tali says she's sending Gabby and someone has to watch the core."

 _B_ _ang_

"… It's _moving._ " The Big Ivan opening shot was monitored by other eyes, too. Once the 16km plasma fireball had cleared of ionizing radiation – which took only twenty seconds, in vacuum – a probe was dispatched. Supposedly, a stealth probe, but reporting back by UV laser rather than (expensive) QEC.

"That bloody hole is _forty kilometres wide."_

" _Never mind that, there's another sphere below it! Supported with_ _webs_ _!"_

Adams was watching from the lounge. _"Captain, those_ _vertical columns_ _are almost threads in comparison to the weight_ _they have to support._ _"_

"What?"

" _The Euler critical load should be exceeded by this. _They're only tension members. Collapse is imminent. And internal atmospheric pressure has vanished, the plates will do Timoshenko buckling._ " _Gabby, standing next to Shepard, tried to translate:

"The plates aren't a balloon skin now and pillars aren't supposed to be compression members – if so they'll fail when the spheres are breached. Shouldn't be able to support side loads and the weight abo– and there they go. They needed the symmetry and support of both spherical shells."

" _There's a dent in the spherical shell below, too."_ Miranda could see the same feed. The outer shell began caroming around the inner one.

"I see it," noted Shepard. "That would be the shell of the capital ship, did that."

"Hell. How many destroyers just got squished?" But Garrus interrupted:

" _Shepard, there are still four shells to go, if the mass calculations are correct."_

"You do the honors, Vakarian."

" _Phase two, Nyrek. Deploying six revolver shots. I'm going to use them as impulse weapons, we need a hole through the middle so we can see what's there."_

"Maneuver so the event horizon catches any that don't stop. _And reload_ – fast _!_ "

" _I hear you. Coats, we'll need those mines soon."_

" _Roger that. Estimate thirty minutes for a stream of eight."_

Coats watched the first of _Peacemaker's_ FTL impactors, turned, and gave orders to his UNAS marine major: "We need a distraction. At least eight mines, maybe more, and break out the directional gamma missiles, I want eight on the external hardpoints. There's thermal blooms moving under what's left of the outer skin. _Move._ "

"Sir!" Suddenly, Coats found himself alone, except for his navigator and Anne.

"Will there be anything left for us to look at?"

"Hope so. I'm betting there's _something_ down there, at the core."

* * *

… _Last orders_

"Lilium."

"First, I owe you."

"No you don't. I didn't like to think of the disruption to Luna City's economy if I didn't forestall an entirely predictable disaster."

"I'm not _that_ bad!"

Lawson kept her mouth shut, just inflicted that flat blue gaze.

"Okay, I was that bad once. Look, this isn't about me."

"What then?"

"I'd like you to talk to someone called Maria. Russian kid."

"Oh?"

"Like Chambers used to be."

" _Oh._ "

"She has problems with her commanding officer."

"Arrange for Mikhailovich to get rid of him. Or is that too hard?"

"It's unnecessary. Mind you, nothing would be easier – but Shepard has fired a shot across his bows. _I_ want her back as Garrus' liaison on _Peacemaker_. However…"

"Well?"

"…Maria doesn't want to transfer."

"Oh. Oh dear. And her commander's efficiency will be compromised, too. Do what you can about that."

"You do understand what you're asking, right? Cover for me."

"I will. Meanwhile, get Maria in here. There's not a lot of time."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #104, "Battle"_

* * *

Thursday, September 10, 2015


	5. Battle

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 104 **Battle**

* * *

 _Swiss Cheese_

Garrus wasn't happy. The first four FTL shots from the blitz pack didn't seem to be having any significant effect at all, despite the rather impressive shrieking violet flares as the steel – not iron – of each shell flashed into plasma on each hit. Of course he could only see the second layer down, in any detail, and even that was not terribly clear, on account of the split outer shell ruining everything in that layer.

"I suspect the exit debris from the second layer has actually punctured the third down."

"It'll have done more than that, sir, but of course we can't see it. And the missiles following in its wake have penetrated through to the center."

"How do we know that?"

" _Pegasus_ says two came out the other side and disappeared into the black hole, sir."

"Tell Shepard!"

"He knows. He's heading for his tank, with ground troops, Williams is resuming duties as CO on _Normandy_."

"Get smart drones down there ASAP. Coats, this is Vakarian. Word on the mines?"

" _The first one's been laid_ _near_ _the original hole in the top shell,_ _the others in a halo around it_ _. A lot of the thermal blooms have gone out_ _._ _"_

"I see that, but we can still expect a few destroyers in half an hour or so. Get another one over the crumpling in the top shell, rig them for simultaneous action."

" _There's no magnetic field here, Garrus."_ Garrus and his own turian engineers were now _au fait_ with human-style thermonuclear warheads as well as the FTL missiles.

"The warheads make copious gamma and there's no atmosphere to block it. That'll do Reapers damage over distances as short as that hole's diameter."

" _I suppose so. There's only the one forty kilometre hole, there's no power in the skin now to open the original hatches. No, wait… Vakarian, your blitz pack reloaded yet?"_

"Uh…" His engineer shook his head. "No. I'm firing the last two as radiant energy weapons." This meant allowing missiles to strike the surface while still in FTL.

" _Tell them to step on it, and set them ALL as radiant weapons. I have three Reaper destroyers trying to cut holes in the collapsed outer sphere."_

"Lawson, you listening? Whatever you've got use it now."

" _Copy that, but Toombs will be in charge, Garrus. Shepard's the ground boss, if he's taking a trip down so am I."_

* * *

 _Closing with the enemy_

 _Peacemaker's_ last two ready-use blitz missiles did for two of the Reaper destroyers about to surface through holes in the collapsed outer sphere, but there were more coming. Garrus' engineers struggled frantically to refill the revolver blitz pack with six more FTL missiles.

Toombs, meanwhile, took over as XO of _Overlord_ while Miranda ran down to the shuttle bay. Hadley and Prangley were carrying backpacks, and Jack brought up the rear with a whacking great M-920 Cain rail gun firing depleted uranium slugs at five kilometres a second.

" _Boss, I'm taking you to within fifty klicks of the forty kilometre hole."_

"That's a risk, Toombs."

" _My judgment, ma'am, you won't have your ass hanging out in the shuttle for more than a minute before you reach the hole in the second shell. And Normandy's doing the same thing."_

"Very well. Expedite."

But before either Shepard or Lawson were even in their craft, the situation changed. Within five minutes Garrus and Czernykh took _Peacemaker_ and _North Cape_ by FTL to within a million kilometres of the fortress planet, a little off-axis from the north and south orbital poles respectively.

" _North Cape_ , what's your load-out?"

" _Two five-megaton nukes under-wing, range about a million kilometres, VI terminal guidance. Also a full blitz-pack."_

"Copy. In two minutes _Peacemaker's_ revolver will be reloaded, can you please begin and we should be able to start when you stop."

" _Will co-operate. Bogdan Pavlovich, be ready for stealth the minute all six missiles are running. We may have to bug out. Firing now."_

"We'll do the same. Nyrek, spin up the core but stealthy, please, we may have to draw off some of these buggers… _Crap_."

" _Vakarian?"_

"Shuttle from _Overlord_ is heading for the hole. It's towing _No_ _rmandy_ _'s_ M-44."

" _I've just fired the entire blitz pack!"_

"From a little off the south polar axis, though. Let's hope."

* * *

 _Let's split_

 _Peacemaker's_ next salvo wasn't firing. Liara became concerned.

"Garrus, what's happening down there? I've got Tevos and Sparatus getting agitated. Are you out of missiles? Should I come down?"

" _Spirits no, Liara. I'm not firing first because Shepard and Lawson's vehicles are in the field of fire, and second because I think it's not needed. Look."_

 _Pegasus_ couldn't really look, sitting twenty AU out-system, but the drone video streams meant Liara might as well be sitting right in the middle of the action. Four titanic concussions penetrated down to the last shell before the core, and two more on the other side.

"Coats, are you getting this? Look what's happening to Dis!"

The entire three-thousand kilometre radius shell-planet began to crack in half.

" _Yes._ Normandy's _heading in to see. I see_ Overlord _beginning to follow."_

"I want them out of there. When are those Alliance destroyers getting here?"

" _The last word Maria had was Mikhailovich's group are still making their way up the chain. The first will arrive in three hours. The whole bunch not for maybe a day."_

"That's two and a half hours late!"

" _I know, Liara. At least it's a bit before we think the Reapers come out of the singularity's gravity well. I'm powering up the core,_ Orizaba's _moving."_

"Why?"

" _Those onion-skins rattling over each other have wiped out most of the destroyers like fleas between thumbnails, but my techs say the broken slaughterships have discharged husks on Dis at the planet's inner core where Shepard's landing."_

"Silly man, I see that. Always with the hopeless odds. I want him to survive. Also there's a whole bunch of Reaper destroyers angling to exit the broken shells."

" _I'm setting up for firing the mini-crucible. Got to build plasma flow."_

"They're blocked so far. Perseus, tell Lemaes we're readying the blitz pack. _Pegasus_ is coming down, stealthed."

 _"No! Evacuate! Guys, everything in this system's about to get creamed."_

" _We can't! Normandy just dropped Shepard's new Hammerhead down there!"_

" _Shepard, get your people back! And Lawson's. Relay that order, Vakarian."_

" _No way, check your orders. Captain (D) and I have supervening line command for the frigate flotilla. You do what you must, Coats."_

" _Garrus, it's me. All frigates, listen up. We_ have _to take a look at this."_

That was Shepard's voice! _"_ _Clear your frigates away from the field of battle. Have all the frigates stealth, fast, before anything comes out that can track you, and ALL of you get in formation behind the singularity. That includes you, Miranda."_

" _No can do, I'm in the shuttle towing your Hammerhead, Shepard. Ash, you heard the man. Toombs, do what Shepard says."_

" _Yes, ma'am,"_ Toombs said flatly. " _Juno, execute. Yoof, get up here, we need you."_

Liara began dropping _Pegasus_ in-system, and asked Perseus to declare battle stations. She even heard the ground teams' conversations somehow through TBS.

" _Pegasus_ here. We won't be grazing, I've got Councilors aboard but we can do a slower orbit. Forty minutes to blind spot. I'm coming for you, Shepard." A counter began on Liara's HUD. "Perseus, ready the core for short-notice FTL jump."

" _Liara, I've got EDI's mobile with me, and Tali squished in the back. The whole damn fake planet's unzipping and I can see something at the core, on high magnification. Vega, take us right there."_

Liara was alarmed. This could get out of control, Shepardwise. "Where's 'there'?"

" _Structural members, like a shattered sphere in a gimbal cage, at the core. See it?"_

"I see something sparkly but we're too far off. I'll get my drone closer."

" _It's like the rings on Saturn, some half a kilometre wide, then there's this core, maybe two metres wide, sparkles like diamond. Similar shape, too."_

"Shepard, drone detects thermal movement less than a kilometre out from your position. Inside pillars. Whoops, there's one."

" _Reaper husks breathe vacuum? Vega, ready Hammerhead commander's guns."_

"I don't think some of them breathe at all, in the usual sense. Expect Scions or equivalent to be still alive."

" _Hey, Coats. There's Reaper husks swanning around at the core. Big things."_

" _Your advice, Captain?"_ Liara heard the faint _thwunk_ of the M-44's main gun.

" _Got him. Get the_ Orizaba's _drop troops down. You've equipped M-7 Lancers?"_

" _Yes, but troops will be a while. Magnet boots. Smart and warp ammo. Bayonets, SMGs, and side-arms with no layer-3, some old anti-tank stuff and SAWs. Also conventional explosives and grenades, layer-1 multiplexed EHF for hopping comm, channels 420 through 15000."_

" _That's thinking ahead. Tell the regiments to drop around our tank, then back off, ready to fire the mini-crucible when the frigates dodge behind the event horizon. We'll have to be quick. Vega, target left, two missiles please."_

"Wait, I can see the core. That crystal's sparking from underneath. It's powered?"

" _Not for long, T'Soni. Dropping now. EDI, you stay with the tank."_

* * *

 _Ground truth_

Fifteen more husks wobbled out of the broken pillar bases and were flamed by either Tali's drone or EDI using the Hammerhead. In one case a husk actually got purchase on the iron ring despite zero gravity; Vega whacked it with an ancient TOW missile.

"Lawson's people coming up…"

Another forty surged out, then reinforcements arrived and the vacuum was thick with ordnance for thirty seconds.

" _Her team should be back on Overlord."_ That was Shepard, sounding angry.

Vega was not impressed. "… would _you_ do that, Captain? You teach too well."

" _Shepard, you're not the boss of me and you can't fight eighty husks by yourself."_

" _Miranda, I'll handle this. Get back on the shuttle. Go now!"_

" _Cut the crap, boy scout, we're here already. Before_ Orizaba _fires the red flash, we're gone and you're coming back with us."_

"Damn _ _it, Jack –_ Wait. Eighty! What kind of husks?"_

" _The kind that can breathe nothingness."_

" _Jack, Miranda, I never thought I'd say this, but thank spirits you're there."_

" _Screw you, Garrus. And you're welcome. There's more coming, Shepard."_

By this time Shepard was close to the collapsing crystal sphere.

"Materials here nothing special." Tali put a hand on the shimmering grey. "This could all have been built from meteoric nickel-iron, except for the forming."

EDI agreed: "Extrusions. There are signs of surface plasma deposition." There were shards of debris all around the vicinity. He could see flat triangles of a shining metal.

"Covers have been torn off. The whole planet's turning around this point and ripping the cage to bits."

"Let's get at that tetrahedron."

" _Bloody magpie. Move it, Shepard."_

"Breaching charge, Tali, detach the edge protectors from the clamps. Right. Get behind – _aack!_ " There was a tremendous white flash. "Bit premature, there!"

"You've got shields, Shepard, and we're in a hurry. Hey! This isn't a tetrahedron! There's another underneath!"

"Biggest bloody diamond I've ever seen. Free the edge clamps." He swiveled to see _Overlord's_ away team coming up behind them, Miranda close behind in her black armor, Hadley cradling a huge Widow sniper rifle.

"Bug out time, Shepard. Hadley, run back and set up near that broken column base." Miranda held two fingers to her right ear, engaging local encrypted comm. "Prangley!"

" _Ma'am?"_

"Get that shuttle down here and throw out the winch hook!"

"Shepard, that's not a diamond, surely. Those sparkles – they're tiny OLEDs."

"Tali?"

"It's some sort of logic core, I think. Diamond substrate, but diffusion-proof organic semiconductor traces. In principle it could be _old_ , I mean aeons."

" _Spirits. Get that thing in a shuttle, shield it before you lose your minds."_

"Garrus? It doesn't look like Reaper tech. Is it an indoctrination risk?"

" _Damn straight. Well maybe not, it's mostly diamond, not a metamaterial. We need to get it somewhere safe. This place isn't. Run it to the far side of Archangel."_

Hadley and EDI worked the next seven minutes like Trojans and finally got the core 'safed' with a stasis shield, and in Prangley's shuttle. It wasn't easy. There were three more waves of husks, increasing in intensity, but Shepard had set up crossfire.

"Tali, we're done. Vega, park the hammerhead. Let's split."

"Hang on Dick, there's something underneath where the diamond was."

EDI took a closer look. It was a translucent cylinder with a cap she recognized as QEC interfaces. They probably matched pairs in the diamond.

"That's like a fantastically high-end VI's focus core. Very very high speed random access registers and qubits mated to QEC pipes. Mira had something similar."

"She was a prototype," observed Tali.

"Is. But yes, very similar," Shepard replied. "We have to get that thing, it's the mind of the brain we just yanked. Hadley, see if you can detach the cylinder."

"We're out of time. There's _fifteen hundred_ thermal traces coming your way!"

"Shepard, you're out of here. You too, Tali, Vega, EDI. Get in the shuttle, leave the Hammerhead here. We'll need it."

"Miranda. I can transfer my focus to _Normandy,_ after I power up the M-44." Shepard was arguing too: "We're _all_ going."

"No, we must have that cylinder, you were right about that. I'll still have Jack and Hadley. And EDI, now."

"Then I'm staying too."

"John, you have implants. Die again and I'll kill you. Be good to… bye. _Get your butt on that shuttle_."

* * *

 _Assuming Direct Control_

Matthews could tell the instant the shuttle door opened that the overboss was _pissed_.

"Sir, Toombs is up in the cockpit with Yoof and Juno. Wants to see you."

"Tell him to get this ship behind the singularity ASAP. Garrus, come in."

"You're not linked in yet sir."

"Fine, I'll go up to the CIC."

The elevator ride seemed to take forever. He should have taken the stairs, but he'd forgotten the later ships had them. Finally the door opened and Traynor welcomed him before the galaxy map.

"Samantha, can you get me linked into TBS through Juno's QEC, please."

"Yes, sir. Is something wrong? You never use my first name."

"Link, please, Traynor."

"Done."

"Garrus?"

" _Shepard, finally! Can we go? They're barely hanging on down there."_

"Yeah. Get moving. Tell Coats when we're clear."

* * *

 _L_ _ooking_ _for trouble_

The N-16x destroyer flotillas were scrambling to get to the fight, but:

" _General Vakarian doesn't hold out much hope of our being useful, Romanov."_

Commander Romanov, still sore at being chewed out first by Shepard and second by Boris Mikhailovich, glared at his turian counterpart. He felt the need to hit something. "We don't know what we can do till we get there. Something will present itself."

" _Oculi are one thing: Reaper destroyers, quite another. If they hold still, we can nail them, but it sounds like a battle royal there right now. Everyone's dodging and diving."_

"Our duty is clear. I just wish the other flotillas were right behind us. How long?"

The turian's holograph turned, consulted someone out of the field of view, nodded: _"A full day, best estimate. For a while there's just the frigates and us. Will that be all?"_

"Yes. And right now it's just the frigates. God save them all. Captain (D) out."

Leaving the hologenerator scan area, he made his way to the CIC. Maria's replacement looked up as the approached the comm board: "All good, sir?"

"Not what I'd call _good_ , Lila. Not quite catastrophic yet, but I'm betting we'll still get to show what these boats can do. There's bound to be someone left to fight."

* * *

 _L_ _uck, and how to push it_

Thirty seconds after the shuttle left they still didn't have the focus cylinder and the husks were getting closer.

 _I don't know how to work the Hammerhead and won't have time to figure it out._

With a curse Miranda stowed her Locust and grabbed Hadley's Widow before the first shot convinced her it wasn't possible for a lightweight to wield the thing in zero-g without being prone and bipod-mounted. A bunch more husks wobbled round the ledges, near the edge, but headed for EDI's decoy.

"Armored. Wish I had an assault rifle with warp ammunition."

"You ever learn to shoot a long gun?"

"Sort of. Jack, we have to work together on that mob. I'll warp, you shock wave."

"Gotcha."

The problematic bunch flew off into space, in bits. But her biotic range was diminishing.

"This is bloody hard."

"You should have got a biotic amp, princess."

"And what happens to you when the red flash goes? Pull it out."

"Shit! It's under my effing scalp!"

"I'll cut it out. I know where to cut."

"Not yet, cheerleader. I'll run up to the corner and shotgun the next mob."

"Hadley! Where are we at?"

"Left-handed bayonet fit, ma'am, but there's some kind of cable and my cutters won't touch it."

" _EDI, go for the lance."_ Hearing this, EDI sprinted for the Hammerhead.

"Liara? I hope it's good, there's new signatures coming. _Big_ husks."

" _There's something in the back of the tank. You'll see."_

EDI arrived back carrying an impossibly massive-looking wheeled box with knobs and a long tube with handles.

"Hadley, have you used one of these before?"

"Holy moly. Yeah, in vocational school. Gimme."

A moment later, there was a fantastic bright stream of iron vapor oxidizing in the vacuum as Hadley tested the thermic lance on the remains of a bracket.

 _Lady's End_

"Hold up the cylinder." The alien cable surrendered after only five seconds.

"Impressive. Thank you Hadley."

At that precise instant, a Praetorian-like Reaper creature hovered around the corner twenty metres distant and scored a direct hit in the small of Miranda's back. Jack screamed, picked up the Cain, ducked behind the next corner and _then_ pulled the trigger. Three seconds later she dodged out and aimed over iron sights. The Cain nearly immolated the crew but did score a direct hit on the huge hovering husk.

EDI recovered first, and ran for the M-44's hatch. _"_ Richard, Jack, _follow me!"_

" _Hell_ you say!" Jack was crying over the smoking ruin of Lawson's armor.

"No, ma'am! Stand off and cover us!" Hadley turned over the body. From what he could see through the visor, Miranda's face was undamaged, if quite white. The lips were already turning blue, though.

EDI didn't curse. She could never see the point. Couldn't think of anything clever to say so over the next millisecond she opened her high-speed interface to the M-44's VI and gave instructions. It took out the next big wobbly with a missile. Doing this meant she could neither decoy, nor shock, but could engage a group further around the ledge with the main gun, swiveling the entire chassis to bring it to bear.

" _Richard, she's dead or dying. We'll come back later!"_

This was transmitted over QEC to the _Normandy_ which was echoing the entire conflict in three streams to her news feed. The ground battle was the current one being transmitted, again by QEC, to ANN, which was covering operations live before an audience of hundreds of millions (and, recorded, billions in Thessia and Palaven alone).

Oriana had switched over from Al-Jilani's Westerlund coverage to ANN at exactly the wrong moment. Her scream brought Hannah running. The crew, of course, knew none of this – at the time.

" _EDI_. You take off if you want. I'm _not_ leaving the boss to die alone. _Jack_. I'll get the Widow–"

Hadley never finished the sentence, for Coats interrupted him with a shouted " _FIRING IN FIVE._ " EDI's mobile began fast shutdown. At the same moment, a double squad of UNAS marines hit the ledge all around them. Others fastened themselves with grapples to pillars. More groups were landing on other ledges above and below.

The remainder of the fifteen hundred husks – smaller but nimbler than scions – swarmed, no longer blocked by their bigger comrades, only to find themselves outnumbered three to one by the Marines. At this point four Reaper destroyers sailed over the circumference of the fractured planet, towards the core battle.

Coats pulled the _Orizaba's_ mini-crucible trigger.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #105, "The Field"_

* * *

Thursday, September 10, 2015


	6. The Field

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 105 **The Field**

* * *

 _Truth and consequences_

The firing of the mini-crucible did not harm the frigates, though for _Pegasus_ it was a close-run thing as the mini-flash propagated around the singularity, hugging the event horizon. N-18, on the far side of Archangel, had been unaffected. When Liara asked: _"Are the councilors safe?" -_ Perseus confirmed they were:

"Fortunately the councilors thought the near-miss was calculated."

This put Liara in a fairly good mood until distorted TBS shrieks alerted her to other crews' anguish. That was all the news either Liara or Garrus had over the next few minutes. On leaving the event horizon's quantum shadow, the terror of the unknown evolved into a busy nightmare of the too well known.

Garrus first asked: "Any communication with _Orizaba?_ "

Maria wasn't encouraging: "No, General. Their QECs will need new paired nodes."

"I'm getting a _lot_ of EHF radio chatter," noted Tarquin, "–some sort of Terran frequency-hopping tech. Ancient but we couldn't crack that at Shanxi, either." EDI came back over the TBS: _"Tarquin, I can forward the EHF hopping algorithm with handshake and timing data."_

"What's going on down there, EDI? Where's Shepard?"

" _His shuttle was picked up by Overlord. Be ready for rapid return, Garrus, the cracked planet is clean of Reapers, but Lawson is dead –"_

Garrus swore complex oaths involving empresses and krogan reproductive organs.

"– _Jack is incapacitated, in fact of the ground team only Hadley is intact."_

"What about you? Obviously you got the focus transferred?"

" _My mobile is in partial shutdown. Might need layer-3 material replaced."_

"Crap. Crap of a Krogan."

" _Actually we got a break there. I'm hearing Wrex taking charge of the site, but can't get in touch. I had engaged the new Hammerhead's overpowered shields."_

"Good. Is Jack alive?"

" _Yes, but not speaking. Wrex is getting her some medical help."_

"What about your mobile?"

" _I'm getting a maintenance ping from the QEC so that at least survived, but I can't restart it, it's locked in the Hammerhead,_ _and_ _the hatch recognition circuitry is fried. N_ _either radio nor UV laser reset signals are getting through."_

"Okay. Tell Wrex to get Coats to put Lawson's body in a trauma unit cooler. I don't know how Shepard is taking this."

 _Triage_

It took half an hour to climb the gravity well back to the smashed planet, even with a short FTL hop. The two planetary halves of Dis were now in different orbits. _Orizaba_ rested in one, where she fell near the ripped out core. The diamond was missing, no surprise. So was the translucent cylinder. _They managed that. Hm._

Shepard checked with Wrex: he'd been intent on keeping any husks away from Miranda's corpse till Jack started having seizures. Fortunately there was a UNAS marine medic who stabilised her. Wrex knew nothing of any alien tech cylinder.

"What about EDI?"

"Eh? She seems fine. She's not talking to you?"

"I mean the mobile. She was in the tank when the flash hit."

"Shepard, just get a new one. I can't get in the Hammerhead."

So Shepard located some Marine engineers who were able to locate and operate the manual disconnect on the bottom hatch latch. All the external electronics were EMP-fried, but the telltales in the gun cabin were up.

 _"Oh…"_ The mobile's face was slumped forward and down on the control yoke.

With surprising care, Wrex assisted Shepard in removing the mobile. Shepard handed it off to a Marine major, instructing them to deliver it to _Normandy_ , and see about towing the Hammerhead. Joker was going to go bananas. But Ash would know from EDI what to do.

"First things first. Get me Coats!"

Surprisingly, _Orizaba's_ layer-2 attomechanical interface was still intact. But all the layer-1 fusibles had blown. These would take six hours to reset and replace – there was only a skeleton crew. Still, that was progress of a sort, and the major reported more:

"Med bay's back up, Shepard. First thing after the reactor and main core."

"Your people took casualties, marine?"

"Two hundred among the marines, half of them silly space-maneuver mistakes. Mostly trivial. No deaths."

"… Except Miranda." Shepard permitted himself a deep sigh. "So it goes." At this point Coats turned up: "How's Jack, then?"

"She's undergone emergency surgery. Out of theatre five minutes ago."

"Good. Who operated?"

"Chakwas, Captain, Chambers assisting. Wiks took Miranda's body, Zabaleta's your medic now. _Normandy_ is standing by and Kelly will be transferred to sick bay there soon. Jack is _not_ looking good. Besides the blood on the back of her head, I mean."

"Does she know what's going on?"

"I spoke to her and I think she understood…"

"But?"

"She just sort of spoke in tongues back to me. She knew she wasn't making sense. That was ticking her off."

"Very well," muttered Shepard. "Admiral, I want Miranda's body going home."

"Captain, I'd like you to speak with Chakwas about that."

"Seriously? _Fine_. What the hell took the ground team so long to get off?"

"Calm down, John. You need to speak to Hadley about that. I hear he's in _Overlord's_ starboard hold, with a pile of Reaper rubbish he won't let anyone near."

"I'll deal with that… in good time. _Juno_ , update Liara for me. Get _Orizaba_ ready for battle, Admiral, we may need you again in eighteen hours. Will that be all?"

Having reported, Shepard went to visit his casualties. One's first duty was to the living, after all. To see Jack he had to get past Chakwas. He wasn't allowed to see Miranda's corpse at all, and it wasn't in the usual sick bay. But Jack was.

 _Orizaba's_ lights were back up, now. Teams of marines were scurrying around with tools. Kelly was in Alliance Nurse's uniform, treating marines. They exchanged looks which told Shepard more in half a second than Chakwas had imparted in five minutes.

Jack's eyes were functional. She did seem to have normal responses, but couldn't speak. At least, not properly. He took her hand without saying anything. She'd only try and talk back. Both he and Kelly stood by her bed for nearly five minutes before a marine messenger from Coats came looking for her.

"I'll dig Jana out of Arcturus, Jack. We'll get you back. Next time, duck."

They ran before she could try and say something naughty. Finally, Shepard managed to get back to _Overlord_. The ship's crew heaved a collective sigh of relief, which on the whole he didn't notice… barring one incident. What really impressed (and distracted) him was Juno, an _AI_ , disturbingly reminiscent of Oriana, throwing herself into his arms at the airlock.

"Please. Bring them back? Especially the captain."

"I don't see how…"

"We need her. You need her. Toombs is unserviceable. She brought you back. Bring her back."

"Juno…" Shepard open and closed his mouth a couple of times. "We'll do what we can. Wrex said there's not much left of her middle."

"And Jack?"

"I've no idea what's happening with Jack, either. Kelly does but she can't tell me yet. Where's Hadley?"

* * *

 _A_ _sad good-bye_

Shepard tracked Hadley down to the shuttle bay, dominated by a hulking great gamma laser nuke projector. There was considerable activity, make-and-mend and reloading of two pumped gamma bombs to replace those fired in the latest turmoil. Hadley himself was washing blood from the shuttle floor.

"Ops Chief. Why are _you_ doing that?"

"It's Miranda's blood sir. Can't let just anyone."

"…I see."

Shepard picked up the now-murky bucket, dropped the contents into a black water receptacle by the hull, and refilled from the osmotic outlet. He noted abstractly that extra personnel were filtering down to the armory.

"Beyond that, Mr Hadley, we will not be playing this game. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir."

 _But it's an open question whether or not he understands_ , Shepard reflected.

"I have seen the Reaper trophies in the cargo bay."

"Sir. Not trophies, sir."

"Spoils of war, perhaps."

"No sir. You were there, and you wanted them too. Big boss – I mean Operative Lawson – said _'We had to have them.'_ Sir."

Actually, now that Shepard came to think about it, that was accurate. He was feeling distracted: an increasing number of silent eyes were focused on the shuttle cleaners.

"We'll have to get Anne and Tali on this stuff before we can make any final determination of that."

"But in the meantime captain, the b – Miranda's word is that… I have to believe it was worth her life. Sir."

Shepard paused for reflection.

"Did _you_ pack the stasis field around, what did Tali call it, the focus cylinder?"

"Yes sir. That was me. The instant I got back. I'd already used the shuttle's projector on the diamond, sir. The shuttle will need a new one. I planned doing that next, sir."

"Don't call me 'Sir'. I'm an Alliance naval Captain and before that a UNAS captain of marines, but not in your chain of command. I'm not a mercenary, Hadley. Not a commander of AD, as Miranda once observed to me rather tartly."

This made Hadley look very upset.

"But sir! Big boss always said to obey your orders as though they came from her."

" _Did_ she now."

 _Gang pressure_

Shepard became aware that there were rather a lot of people around, and to use an old expression, you could hear a pin drop. He wondered fleetingly about that. To Shepard, a pin was a belaying pin, split pin, or cotter pin, and of course you would hear one drop. Why a sewing pin? They barely existed any more.

He shook his head. _Focus, man_. It had been a long day for all of them, but this crew's behavior was odd. No, it wasn't. The command structure had been eviscerated as thoroughly as Miranda.

"Where is Toombs?"

"He's told me to take charge and gone to the gunnery room, sir. I looked a moment ago and he's wiped out. Asleep. In a sling between the gun mounts, Mister Shepard."

Shepard noted Hadley's use of old commonwealth naval _Mister_ for a generic officer.

"But wasn't Toombs Miranda's XO? Or did Jack take that over?"

"Yes sir, both, sort of. But Lawson dying, and… he took it all very, very badly."

"That's strange. He hated Cerberus almost as much as Jack did."

"But he – he approved of big boss, sir. Also little boss. And what Jack thought of her, what she thought of Jack – it's difficult to describe, sir."

"Yes. I know."

Shepard stopped to rethink. The ship was essentially without command structure and Juno was on the point of some kind of silicon breakdown. He couldn't afford the loss of this ship, not now.

"Hadley, have you heard from Goldstein recently?"

The non-sequitur startled Mr Hadley considerably. But he rallied:

"Yes, sir. She's getting straight B's in staff college sir. Except in gunnery."

"That's actually rather good. Funny about the gunnery," said Shepard, wanting to set him a little more at ease.

"I didn't say she'd failed gunnery, sir."

"No. We both know what she'd manage there. Tell me, Hadley, would she make a good CO?"

Hadley looked sideways again. "One day, sir."

"Right. She has not, yet, had to show tactical thinking under fire. Though I doubt not that she will manage, one day. Whereas I recall _you_ doing so several times now."

"Sir. It is very kind of you to say so, sir."

"Perhaps she might mature as an XO, under an experienced commander, for a short time. When she graduates."

"Sir."

"You don't have a tertiary-level qualification, do you?"

 _Another non-sequitur._ "No, sir. Although before the war I started night classes at community college. In English and mechanical engineering, sir."

"Right. So you have matriculated, out of high school. It occurs to me that you have the opposite problem to Ms Goldstein."

"Oh, I get it. Yes sir, from a certain point of view."

" _(*I wonder if I will get away with this.*)"_

"Sir? I didn't catch that."

"Miranda'd kill me for this. Or at least throw a galaxy-class snit. Mr Hadley, I am minded to forward an application for you to attend Staff College at Arcturus station."

" _Sir?!"_

"The only difficulties I can foresee, apart from fees which AD will meet, are that you are not a formally commissioned officer in the Alliance forces. Nor are you an officer in any of the national armed forces underlying the Alliance. Also that you have a potentially close relationship with a more senior student in the college. Would that last issue become a problem, Hadley?"

"No, sir."

"If I am to resume responsibility for this boat, for the duration of this mission, I will require a functioning executive officer. I can only legitimately give orders to an Alliance officer or one of the component militaries. Do you hear me?"

"Five by five, sir."

"Raise your right hand, and repeat after me."

Hadley, still standing on the shuttle door's lip, raised his hand.

" _I, Richard Arnold Hadley, do solemnly affirm_ …"

"I, Richard Arnold Hadley, do solemnly affirm…"

"… _that I will support and defend the Constitution of the Systems Alliance…"_

"… that I will support and defend the Constitution of the Systems Alliance…"

"… _against all enemies, be they alien, machine, or human…"_

"… against all enemies, be they alien, machine, or human…"

…

The whole procedure took four minutes. There were no interruptions. At the end of it, the two exchanged a salute.

"Report to me, Ensign, in twelve hours or so soon as may reasonably be convenient, for documents of engagement and your commission as ensign."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

" _Now_ you can call me that."

"Sir. Is this legal, sir?"

"Most certainly. It's called a battlefield commission, Mr Hadley. Not supposed to happen in this day and age, but still formally exists. Like letters of __marque et reprise__ , which I will have to see about from Mister Coats' mysterious monarch."

"I see, sir. I think."

"Good. Oh, and set a lock on the um, alien artifacts. Tomorrow we cache them on Archangel. Dismissed."

Shepard pivoted right and proceeded to the elevator door, looking neither right nor left. He requested the loft. It opened to his touch, which he supposed was not a security lapse. The hospital gurney was still there. He clicked himself in.

"Juno, I will require sleep. Use your judgment on waking me. I will accept any call from nurse Kelly Chambers or her superiors."

" _Yes, Captain."_

* * *

 _Walking wounded_

John was taking this very badly indeed. Kelly could tell even over the low-grade TBS audio signal. His voice was hoarse, like he had a strep throat. And he wanted to just sleep for a week. So did she – with him. Better get him over to _Normandy_ , soonest.

But there was a problem with that. No prize for guessing who would replace Miranda in command of _Overlord_. When her Alliance captain had asked: _"Who's running the boat?"  
_ – mercenary eyes had turned his way. On giving the news about Miranda, Toombs just put his head in his hands in the XO's office, on Jack's bunk, and said nothing more.

John, on the other hand, barely twitched. On the surface. _Vu d'en bas_ …

Someone would eventually have to go down and get Toombs out of his funk, but it wouldn't be her – there wasn't time, Chakwas needed her badly in sick bay. Meanwhile, Shepard assumed _de facto_ command of _Overlord_ , _faute de mieux_. So Kelly couldn't go and see _him_ , either.

Clearly, Shepard himself felt that dead girlfriends and live partners aside, his first duty was clear; to eliminate the remaining threats. He _would_ be doing his duty. Kelly hummed an old ditty:

"Duty. Dutydutyduty. _Tra la._ "

One might as well follow his example. At least it stopped one thinking too hard. She and Shepard would have to be apart for the rest of the mission.

At least the Reapers wouldn't get them both simultaneously, that way.

 _Command of the field of battle_

The following morning was time to take stock. Shepard noted with pleasure that _Orizaba's_ comms were back on-line, as he disposed of his priority emails.

"Okay, _Juno_. No Reaper survived in the cracked planet at all?"

"No, captain."

"I'm just a Captain, am I _your_ captain?"

"Yes, captain. That little bit of theater did the job."

So, _Overlord_ now had its master and commander. Next ship.

"What about _Orizaba?_ "

"Coats had equipped everyone with crucible flash resistant electronics. Basically reworked gear from the UNAS inventory of stockpiled pre-contact layer-1 stuff. _Orizaba's_ still paralyzed but talking and Coats expects engine way by third watch."

"Where's Miranda's body? Did the helmet stay on?"

"It eventually wound up in Chakwas' custody on _Orizaba._ Vega and Wrex told Garrus' morgue crew to "piss off", they put Miri's body on ice in _Overlord's_ shuttle, Williams took _Normandy_ in to pick it up, transferred it quite quickly. I have video."

"I know. Kelly said I'm not allowed to watch it. They touched nothing?"

"Even kept all the armor on including the helmet. Oh, Kelly says she's back on _Normandy_ as medic."

"Fine. The Reapers coming up from the event horizon won't get us both, anyway. Speaking of which–"

"The three leading gravity disturbances have dropped off the sensors, Shepard. EDI thinks they've fallen back into the black hole. I concur."

Shepard pondered that. Best guess, the consequences for those remaining Reapers were 'merely' awful. The mini-crucible was a comparatively crude device in any event, not able to generate the level of string coherence of the galaxy-clearing version. But for the lead trio it might as well have been the difference between an A-bomb and an H-bomb to a person standing at ground zero; they were knocked out completely.

"And those left trailing deeper in the gravity well?"

It seemed the gravitational refraction dispersed the soliton grid enough so the spacing between strings was not so regular. There was a surviving threat, albeit with some damage.

"So they're still coming."

"Twenty hours, perhaps. But we have reinforcements too, Shepard."

* * *

 _S_ _hooting the breeze_

Well before scheduled irruption into the space around N-17, Rasa's bunk alarm bonged at her. _Lila: see me. Commissary_. So up she got and headed out for tea. The captain was already there. No-one else. He nodded, indicating a chair. She got tea first.

"You _quite_ comfortable, Lila?" The captain produced a datapad. _Uh huh_.

"Why yes, thanks." A wholly sincere smile went with this exchange. He grimaced.

"I've been checking on the service record of our replacement comm chief. You."

"Of course you have. I've noticed you noticing me. Find anything interesting?"

Romanov stared. "What was _interesting_ was the nothing. No disciplinary actions. Neither demerits nor accolades. No approbations, except one, from Pyotr Mikhailovich and the Admiral of the Fleet. And trying to dig deeper with your service record number reveals a blank. No dogtags ever even issued for 5187-BG-8248!"

Rasa pulled on her dogtag chain; the two metal plaques jingled against each other. She examined them meditatively. "5187-BG-8248. Hm. You know, I never bothered to check the identifier. But there they are. Isn't that interesting?"

The captain's composure shattered. "Those have to be fake!" (Rasa shrugged.) "My conclusion is, no warrant of enlistment was ever issued you!"

Rasa chuckled: "Well. Certainly no warrant would be found in _your_ search. Now, what do you think could be happening here?"

"It doesn't matter. No valid service record, no warrant, means you're a civilian – not duly enlisted. I'm putting you off the boat first thing at N-18. You can go back to that turian imbecile who foisted you on me, and I'm getting Maria back."

"You will not. Your boat needs a signals tech competent to regulate a multilingual flotilla battle. That's me. Check your orders, captain, and not just from Vakarian."

Romanov sat back, steaming internally. "How would _you_ know what orders I have?"

"Lucky guess, Captain. As to the lack of record on my ID, to explain I'd have to show you something. Why don't we run a few more searches on the system?"

Now he was interested. S _tress level lowered. Let's modify his state of mind further:_

"Your ship VI should have standard copies of the personnel service records. We could do it at the CIC, but fair warning– it could get sensitive."

The captain's jaw clenched; clearly grinding his teeth a little:

"No. We will do this in the captain's cabin, on this floor, privately. Come with me."

 _Sowing the w_ _ind_

Commander's quarters, SR-1 style, were less expansive than the loft of an SR-2 class frigate, but comfortable, and sufficiently private. Rasa sat on the bed and began:

"Before you go haring off to challenge my duty here, I have another service record for you to examine on _Potemkin's_ cached copy. Try 5923-AC-2826."

"Fine." The captain's desk holoscreen showed red highlights on the words _Rejected search/deceased/security alert/terminal LOCKED._ "Wait – that can't be right – can it?"

"Oops. Some things in a ship's VI are off-limits even to the captain. I guess we'll have to do future searches at the CIC, unless your engineers can reset the terminal."

"Son of a _bitch._ I don't _believe_ this."

"The person corresponding to that ID lived dangerously. Unprivileged search on that key is now considered a hack. Nicely illustrates my point."

There came a knock on the door. _"Captain? Genrikh here."_ Rasa smirked.

"Come in, chief." Romanov glared at Rasa but knew this was ultimately _his_ problem.

"Console two gave me a security alert on your terminal, sir!"

"Yes, I dare say it did. Can you fix this?" Romanov indicated his terminal. His engineeer's eyes went wide.

"No sir! Not here. I can reset the system from main engineering console."

"Do so, please chief. I'll speak to you about this later. It might happen again."

With the engineeering chief's departure, the captain took up the obvious anomaly: "Searching on _your_ record didn't lock the terminal! So what was your point?"

"Well duh. Clearly not all service records are available to you. Even of a serving crew member. My record is _tabula rasa_ – what transpired when you accessed Maria's?"

A start, then recovery: "I never tried her ID." Rasa wondered if she believed it.  
 _No_. "The _hell_ you say, Commander Romanov. Liar!" Simultaneous emotions of guilt, amazement, and petulance chased across his face. No fear, not yet. _Fix that_.

"Your terminal's unlocked again – why don't you try now?" (Romanov swallowed.) "You don't dare, do you?"

" _Dare_ has nothing to do with it. I simply have no good reason. Besides– even when she served on the crew of this ship, searching her service record felt wrong."

"And searching on _my_ service record did not?" Now the captain looked both angry and embarrassed. Rasa leaned forward. "Listen, Peter. Listen well. Whether it trips a system error or not, I'm guessing my record ID is a honeytoken. Expect questions–"

"A what?"

"Honeytoken. A trap in a system triggered by activity likely to be unlawful."

 _W_ _hirlwind_

"I don't follow. I am permitted to access the service record of my subordinates!"

"Of course. You are permitted to demonstrate the kind of leader you are. They want people like you to take that step. I'm morally _certain_ the service record of Maria is a trap set for people in your position, Peter. And I'm not so important as her, but I'd bet reading my record rings bells in Alliance HQ too."

Now his eyes betrayed no small fear. _Fear of what, exactly?_

"What were you _thinking_ , captain? Couldn't you tell Maria is unique? Would you try to search for private details of, oh I don't know, let's say Ms Miranda Lawson?"

"I need not fear some pirate gangster queen!" His pupils dilating now.

"Pirate? Really? Lawson is a _lawbringer_ , captain, she has armies of lawyers and no few judges, she makes the law all her own, she has other armies too in the service of the law and trust me, when push comes to shove she's a one-woman army! Blank record or not, I'm a _dangerous_ person, captain, but I'm not in her league! Or Maria's!"

Romanov, keening low, had fists clenched around his datapad. _Danger close, girl_.

She leaned back. "No matter. Now we _know_ you had designs on your Signals chief."

"You spawn of Satan! You know no such thing–" Anger boiling. _Now!_

" _Yes_ , I _do_ , and _someone_ at Arcturus will know too… real soon. Next time this ship passes through a relay it will send an extranet update packet to the next in line. Depending on my word, minutes, hours, days, or weeks from now, your career is _over_. So what possessed you, captain? What–"

Rasa never finished the sentence; the captain smashed the datapad over her head. She lay stunned a moment– by the time thought returned, his hands closed her throat. Struggling to remove the chokehold seemed unavailing, the man had twice her mass and three times her musculature, but she had just sufficient strength to move her right hand to her boot.

Seconds of consciousness remaining, Rasa inserted the point of her Fairbairn below her captain's ribs.

 _As ye sow, so shall ye reap_

In the moments following Romanov's initial paralysis, as his grip loosened and one hand began moving to the pinprick in his gizzard, Rasa's windpipe cleared, vision returned, and her knifepoint moved millimetrically further in. He froze. She breathed.

This tableau continued for five heartbeats.

"So… Commander. Now we come to this." He was breathing nearly as hard as her, but the anger had left his eyes, replaced by something close to horror. " _Relax_ , please… But otherwise… make no sudden moves." He nodded, apparently struck dumb.

"Good… not completely lacking in self-control… Peter. Watch what I do next… and _consider_." Rasa released her commando knife, clattering to the floor. The pain in his eyes reverted to a new kind of shock. She had a brief moment.

"Now… I'm flat on my back, pinned by your carcass… with your hand on my throat. Utterly defenceless. You have… choices. Slay me with my own knife… Strangle me. Or…"

"Or?" His breathing was under control, now. He was _thinking_ again. _Try it_.

"Kiss me."

 _Truth to power_

" _Kiss_ you!?"

Rasa could breath freely now, and see properly. _Shock. Guilt. Anticipation_.

"Will you try to tell me you did not want to? A woman _knows_ , Peter. Me. Maria. Even from the gaze of her captain while she stands at her comm station."

The silence extended nearly ten breaths. Rasa began to worry. But at length, the captain released his grip completely, and he got up slowly, like a wounded bear. Which, in a way, he was.

The captain proceeded carefully towards the small faucet and basin recessed into the wall, and moistened a paper towel. Rasa thought he'd apply it to his side, but he returned and with great care began sponging the bulge on her forehead where his datapad broke. His face was twisted. _His cheeks are wet_. This was very unexpected.

 _Crap. What will he do now?_ Rasa began to shiver, most annoying. She hunched her arms against her side and tucked her chin against her chest. _Body reacting to shock?_

Romanov enfolded her in a hug against his chest, and kissed her forehead bump. Startled, Rasa looked up. He was desperately, madly, sad. _Grieving_.

"You know," she croaked, "you could kiss me properly. Or kill me. I won't say no."

"Lila." He stopped, began again. "Rasa Lila, if that's who you really are. I can't kill you, if only because how would I dispose of the body?"

"Tie me to the titanium hull and let the lithium droplets do their thing."

He laughed half a laugh, interrupted by a fit of coughing. Then began again, a tortured giggle.

"One way to celebrate the end of my career, I suppose."

Rasa leaned against him. It really was difficult to stay upright. He held her closer.

"I think your career is safe, Peter. Now."

"I have searched Maria's records without proper cause. Finding very little of consequence, I might add. I have searched the record of some unknown serviceman and thereby provoked a system shutdown. I have threatened, lied to, assaulted and nearly killed the Signals tech on whom I must rely in the coming battle. Who cut me! I have destroyed a datapad in the process – my quartermaster will be severely ticked off. In what alternate universe, Rasa, is my career 'safe' now?"

Rasa nodded her head, not in agreement but because it was difficult to keep it from wobbling.

"The one where I get some sleep. I guess. Kali, my speech is slurring…"

Her captain's eyes became alarmed again, she thought. Hard to tell, vision blurry. She felt herself picked up bodily, and could tell when she was carried through the cabin door, but was unconscious by the time she was lying on a med bay gurney.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #106, "The quality of quantity"_

* * *

Sunday, September 13, 2015


	7. The quality of quantity

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 106 **The quality of quantity**

* * *

 _Oculus destroyers_

One last sleek little ship ran through N-18 as Ashley, Cortez, and Vega were welcomed by Joker, and Vega contemplated the icy dark jump field from _Normandy's_ airlock hatch: "I count fifty now. I thought there were supposed to be twenty-four?"

"That's just the humans. One turian flotilla is here, too. Forty-eight standard destroyers. They're labeled DDs. Two with special comm and scanning gear."

"Two Command platforms, huh. So a Captain (D) for each?"

" _Two flotilla leaders, yeah. That's all they've built so far, but the superdock's still cranking."_

"' _Destroyers_ ', eh?" Ashley was awed. "They look just like the original _Normandy_."

"The SR-1, you got it. They _are_ the original _Normandy_ , sweets. Mostly."

"Well, the chassis. Good design and the turian superdock knew how to build it."

Joker disagreed: _"No, they're not. Look the same on the outside but cheap and dirty. Barely any VI, overmanned, no pods, short-range FTL. Grossly over-gunned."_

"No VI? They'd need ace pilots." Cortez didn't seem very impressed either.

" _If they're not ace pilots now the survivors sure as hell will be after first dog."_

First dog watch ended at 1800 military (Zulu or Zero) time. _Timing's problematic_ ; Reapers were supposed to be powering out of the singularity's gravity well thereabouts.

Both crew divisions would be up and about, the second about to have a meal, which was why Shepard generally stirred from his loft at around 1845 hours to move around the ship and gain a sense of crew morale – a habit Ashley likewise adopted.

At least all twenty-four bunks would be empty. She'd have spare crew instantly available if battle ensued.

"Maybe. Joker, Shepard says they have a third the eezo core, and simplified in other ways. But, that shuttle bay has a big door. They can either take a Hammerhead or fold out a directional nuke shooter."

" _But they can't do stealth."_

"Even so. They've a Thanix cannon each. On thrusters they go like stink. I see two FTL missiles under-wing. My worry is, they're all on shakedown cruises."

" _Figures, Ash. You notice those last six didn't even have any paint?"_

"I did. We've seen enough."

"Let's get in. Can we talk to Shepard about this?"

* * *

 _T_ _he 'Oy' of the beholder_

Adams and Ashley finally managed to get EDI's mobile hooked up by way of the diagnostics fiber, with Kelly's assistance, whereupon Ash departed. Kelly and Adams now had the same diagnostic picture on their omni-tools as EDI.

"Weird."

" _Adams?"_

"First obstacle is the layer-1 fusibles. Can we fix those?"

" _They're below what in a human would be the gluteus maximus, Greg. Radiating out from the os coccyx."_

Kelly had not slept well. But she laughed, which was good for her. Adams, who never knew Miranda well, _had_ slept well. But he didn't laugh. Yet.

"Does that mean what I think it does?"

"EDI's layer-1 fusibles are in her butt. I'll have to crudely cut."

"Ew!"

" _It's a crime, but it rhymes."_

The groans were music to EDI's ears. More pain, less depression.

* * *

 _God is for the cheap_ _battalions_

" _Ash. You speak to Shepard? What's the point of these destroyer things?"_

"He says, and I quote, _'I_ _t's_ _said to be a_ _Mikhailovich_ _brainstorm,_ _and the Primarch went along for the sake of politics_ _._ _But I don't know so much. One flotilla is turian.'_ When Garrus got made frigate flotilla leader over the head of Boris, the Primarch pacified Pyotr Mikhailovich by rushing these through."

" _I get it. I suppose."_

"Vega, I don't think anyone knows how effective they will be. As I heard it, the turians had a choice, they could use their dock to make another six Normandy SR2 class frigates, or they could make eight times as many of these things. Boris calls them destroyers because it's good propaganda. He's reclaiming the word."

" _Yeah. A destroyer used to be the smallest ship that could engage in fleet actions. With torpedoes. Cheap, disposable, deadly, and unfair. My kind of ship."_

"Don't be in too much of a hurry to place a bid. They cost a lot more than shuttles."

Vega had a different perspective. _"Hey, I could get one of these 'destroyers' and put a big-ass eezo core in again. My own N7 sneaky ship."_

"One day. When we get more eezo. Next dead Reaper relay we find, maybe. "

* * *

 _Machine CPR_

Some time later, Adams sat EDI's mobile back on the bench in the AI core, and reconnected the cable.

" _All right. Now I can see below, into layer-3. All the modules seem fine to a passive probe but they're not powered. Local fusion core is down."_

"Is that another EMP short?"

" _No. It scrammed. It'll have to be restarted by external cable, though."_

"Is that like the way we had Eva hooked up?"

" _Yes."_

"Oh God."

" _The cables are in the storage locker, Greg."_

* * *

 _It's a pirate life for me_

The 'morning' after, Coats also checked his email and found the note to Mikhailovich, copied to Hackett and Hannah. The email merely said to consult his _paper_ mail, normally reserved for sensitive secure comm.

So he did.

He laughed and laughed and laughed even as he burned the message. This would be entertaining.

Not that he thought Shepard would get away with either the battlefield commission or the letters, but with Mikhailovich you never knew.

* * *

 _The flesh is weak_

That same 'morning' saw Shepard and Vakarian gather around a gurney with the flotilla leader as Chambers administered one last intravenous nanite infusion. Their frustration was attaining epic proportions – Romanov flatly declared that he'd been sponging the injury when Lila lost consciousness, that people would have to ask the patient how she came to have a fractured skull, and no, he had absolutely no comment to make until then. Shepard looked at Chambers, who just rolled her eyes.

Vakarian had thereupon instructed Romanov that he was not to leave _Peacemaker_ absent imminent battle. Which actually looked fairly probable. But now, at last, Brooks might be coming around: "She's murmuring something about Maria. And Lawson."

"Oh my. Could we clear the med bay, do you think?"

"No. But Garrus, would you leave us with Brooks if you please?"

"With pleasure. We have a battle to prepare. Captain (D), with me."

So by the time Rasa woke properly, the first face she saw was Chambers.

* * *

 _Buried treasure_

Anne watched Mikhailovich's pioneer troops board a destroyer with all their gear. When they were gone, she and Tali opened the hatch flush with the ground.

"Tali? This is ours now?"

The lab bunker was like a relay maintenance shed, but buried in the middle of a heap of meteoric iron. On the inside it might have been a fairly civilized prefab.

"Yes. No Reaper will spot this in a hurry without a good close scan of the planet."

"And if it does?"

"Goodbye, Bryson. There's that Sakharov mine just beneath our feet."

"Nuke, nuke, nukity nuke nuke. Let's not be here when it's set off."

"Then don't get indoctrinated. There are canaries watching both of us."

"I'm already indoctrinated."

"That's different, Leviathan stuff. Jana wants to open up your head, you know."

"Brrr." Anne checked the diagnostics console. "Some of the monitoring is remote."

" _North Cape_ is keeping station overhead. And I'll bet Eva's got her metaphorical finger on the button. Bosh'tet Cerberus chick robot."

"Well. Let's get Hadley's treasure trove set up and see what we've got."

"I prefer to think of it as Miranda's last gift."

"Well – I guess she paid for it. I thought they might bring her back like they did with Shepard, but Kelly was going around with big sad face till she got some sleep. I didn't like the look on Shepard's face, either."

"Kelly actually got drunk with me. They had more of Shep to work with. That lumpy praetorian-type thingy took out Miranda's whole tummy."

"Oh God. No details, please."

"Yeah. I saw the bits. Even if she was a perfect bitch, it hurts remembering her."

"Depressing. Let's make it less so."

"Anne, we can't power these up, you realize. Liara wants to be here when we do."

"Out of the question, anyway. I've only six hours before Coats want me back."

* * *

 _R_ _ebel r_ _obot_ _reboot revels_

Some time later, they laid EDI's mobile on her back on the floor of the AI core, and hooked up the fusion kickstarter as well as the full set of diagnostic and power cables.

" _This is_ not _fun."_

Adams didn't know where to look. "I'll not forget this afternoon as long as I live."

"You are both such babies. I'll get Joker down here, he won't complain."

" _No!"_

"Sorry, EDI, I couldn't resist. Whoops, here's a marine with a bad finger. And Shepard needs me on _Peacemaker_. Hang in there, folks."

"Abandoned. Crap. Is the buss live?" - asked Adams.

 _"Yes, but still on emergency cells."_

"Is the fusion core responding yet?"

"… _I'm ramping up slowly."_

"Urgh."

" _Being cautious. Nominal power now. Oh dear."_

"EDI?"

" _Ran the next diagnostic in the series. There's a problem but it's fixable. I'll have to upload microcode for the layer-3 modules."_

"Did the crucible flash do this?"

" _Not the red bit. I have access to some logs now. It looks as though the crucible flash was stopped cold by the Hammerhead superconducting shields, but then the EMP arrived. That induced so much current, the shielding stopped superconducting."_

"Some of it got inside the Hammerhead cab?"

" _So it would seem. The layer-3 electro-optical stuff has such short conductive paths the modules themselves didn't short out, but the firmware's corrupt. The Hamming codes aren't good enough to recover the lost data…"_

"…and the startup algorithms abort. That's fixable! You can flash new firmware!"

" _Yes… Done. Greg, would you unplug me please."_

"Can't Kelly do this?"

" _Now, Greg. Kelly is an engineer of humans and she has customers in two med bays. You are an engineer of machines. Surely this is your area of responsibility? Besides, she's been commiserating with Tali, better those marines than me."_

"Fine. But I'm never going to look at a fusion power starter the same way again."

* * *

 _Uninsurable_

"Nurse Chambers, huh? Shepard can't be far. Where am I?"

Shepard loomed over Kelly's shoulder. "On _Peacemaker_. Should I call Garrus?"

"God no! Not yet."

"Very well. What do you want us to do with Romanov? Slow boil? Burning at the stake is not indicated for an oxygen-rich space environment. Or perhaps you would prefer a formal trial followed by crucifixion? I'm sure we could oblige."

"Wait up – just what do you think happened here?"

"We don't know. He ran out with you to DD001's med bay and after emergency treatment got you to _Peacemaker_ which has better facilities. Presumably because Garrus is his boss. Extremely dodgy database searches were made from his terminal. There's a knife on the floor of his office, with blood on the tip, and a smashed datapad with more blood. Yours. It does _not_ look good for your captain but he's standing pat, saying he tried to sponge off your head injury till you took a turn for the worse, and refuses to speculate in any way shape or form about how it might have happened."

"Okay. Freaky space aliens came out of the walls and whacked me while he was dealing with errors on his terminal. I'm not copping to those, no way."

"Brooks."

"Call me Rasa, please. He fought them off with my knife."

"It's _his_ blood on the knife, Rasa, and _I_ had to suture the stab wound!"

"You sure nurses are allowed to do that, Kelly? How many stitches?"

"Just one. But it's the principle of the thing!"

"Fine. A subspace poltergeist picked up the datapad, threw it across the room and I got belted with it. Romanov tried to fight them off and got in the way of my knife."

Kelly sighed and sat next to her bed. "The truth would be nice."

"No, it wouldn't. And if I'd really wanted him dead– what am I saying? Ssh. Shush."

Shepard interrupted: "The upshot is, you won't file a complaint?"

"No! Kelly, what did you put inside me? See Lawson! This was all her idea! Or at least she told me to try and keep him efficient. She's supposed to be covering for me!"

Chambers and Shepard exchanged glances – then _Vakarian_ spoke from the doorway: "Well, that puts a different complexion on matters."

"Garrus, this is an Alliance internal disciplinary matter."

"Give me a break, Shepard, we do battle in hours using a man you want to parboil. And since when do we owe Brooks any favors?"

"Listen to the nice Mister Vakarian, Shepard, and let Romanov go."

"See, Garrus? Now you've done exactly what she wants!"

 _Policies_

Finally, every busybody swanned off to separate duties, leaving Kelly with Rasa.

"?"

"I'm listening."

"Speak to Lawson."

"I'm certainly not speaking to anyone before I speak meaningfully with _you_. I have to speak to Romanov next. What was it with these database searches? I have Pyotr Mikhailovich about to string up your Captain (D) from some sort of space yardarm."

"Oh no. Spare us."

"Can't. You're not giving me much to work with, here."

"Fine. You said something to Maria. So now she's here on _Peacemaker_ , right?"

"Not for long. She's to fill your spot on the DD flotilla leader, at least temporarily."

"Don't do that!"

"Then _give_ me something!"

"Ooof." Rasa lay back and contemplated the ceiling. "Peter was about to kick me off the boat because I'm a civilian, he said. No warrant of enlistment."

"That's because you're a commissioned staff captain. Soon as you sign your papers."

"I'm a _what?_ "

"You're not an enlisted man. You're an officer – but it doesn't show, because if he had looked closely he would have seen a little note in Hackett's approbation that you're on the staff intelligence corps. Fact is, as staff captain you outrank the Captain (D)."

"Could I have told him to piss off then?"

"Yes. And he would have made a fuss. Which would have led to a court-martial. Of _him_. Did you want that?"

"No! Just see to it I get back. He's been moping about Maria. To no good effect."

"I _see_. And she's been moping about him?"

"Exactly right. Lawson said to keep Peter focused. Actually she said _'Do something about that.'_ So I did, as asked."

"In your own inimitable way. I'm still not sure restoring you to duty is wise."

"He had eyes on me too, but I'll be fine. Just don't let Maria back. It won't end well."

"Not yet, at least. Give it a few years. I think that's enough, for now. Wait, what prompted the other search? The lockout?"

"That was me. I had Peter search on a certain service record ID. Just to demonstrate there was more to heaven and earth than was met with in his philosophy."

"All right. You're restored to duty, Rasa. But there's something you need to know. Lawson…"

* * *

 _Exigencies_

 _Overlord_ approached Fort Archangel very carefully. The local garrison was huge, trigger-happy, and had some remarkably efficient ground-to-space missiles. Nonetheless, it took only five minutes to settle on to a jump pad.

Shepard made his way to Boris' command post, atop a huge bunker. Troopers snapped to attention as he passed. Just as well: his eyes weren't so gritty and he could think better after sleep, but he still wanted to bite someone's head off.

He didn't have to explain who he was, which was odd because he hadn't shaved or showered and was still in nondescript Alliance battledress from the previous day, with only a tiny name badge. Following Juno's whispered directions he marched up to the Admirals office at the end of a long corridor, snapped to attention before the guards, saluted, and began:

"Captain John Shepard, out of _Overlord_ , reporting."

The senior guard looked down his nose and consulted his list. "I only have a Captain Shepard out of _Normandy_."

Not being in the mood for this, Shepard looked the gatekeeper straight in the eye:

"Exigencies of war, lieutenant. _Overlord_ it is."

"Then I cannot let you pass, captain."

Shepard snapped off another salute, nodded, clicked his heels, pivoted, and marched straight back down the corridor.

He had nearly reached the far end before he heard Mikhailovich call from his door:

" _Captain_. Would you please be so good as to come into my parlor."

The guard lieutenant gave him a really poisonous look. It bounced off.

* * *

 _Pain_ _can be good for you_

Some time later, Adams sat EDI's mobile back on the bench in the AI core, and reconnected the cable. Rebooting took a little while.

"… _eight green._ OW. _"_

"…EDI?"

The mobile got to its feet without further ado.

"Greg, would you call Kelly in, please? I may need some attention to the incisions she made, and we are out of time. The fleet is advancing."

"Don't tell me. You have a sore butt."

* * *

 _Spider and WASP_

"Admiral, I understand what you're trying to do, but it took you far too long to assemble your big destroyer wings."

"Your frigates are beautiful works of craft, Captain, like a lot of UNAS weapons, but there aren't enough of them. Every one a damnable prototype."

"There were enough till yesterday. But where were your destroyers? Now I've got to get _Overlord_ re-officered or I'm down a whole stealth frigate. That's what the battlefield commission was about."

"If you're wondering how those destroyer SR-1 clones are supposed to fight what's coming, Captain, I know they're only a thousandth the mass of a Reaper destroyer, if that. But there are a _LOT_ of them, and more coming. That's a Russian philosophy."

"American too. _'Quantity has a quality of its own,'_ that might have been a quote by Stalin, but even back then the old US did the same. They finalized the Sherman tank design early and made huge numbers of them, just for one example."

"Too early. The US lost men because of their haste. Shermans had good engines but compromised armor. The Tigers were better. Above all, Shermans were under-gunned."

"Yeah - at first, one-on-one, except for variants like Fireflys. But so were the T-34s. Admiral, I'm not impressed with your argument about numbers. Peacetime habits are one thing but wartime UNAS traditions are more similar than you think, and I needed those destroyers __yesterday__. At least the old Shermans were __there__ when they were needed. You recall what the Germans said about them?"

" _'No Shermans for Germans?'_ The destroyers which will meet the Reapers in battle this evening have plenty of firepower."

"Well, that too. But mainly, _'The problem with killing one Sherman is that five turn up for the funeral'_. Your destroyers did not turn up even for Miranda's funeral, let alone in time to save her life."

"Is that what this is all about? Your dead girlfriend?"

Shepard said nothing, just stared at Boris Mikhailovich, who flinched.

"I'm sorry, Captain. That was uncalled for."

"Damn right. Without her there would be no me. I'd like to think the human race would still have survived, but your own brother thinks not. The delay left Coats with no choice but to zap the red flash, so they had to pull _me_ out first. Actually Miranda ordered me out, or I'd be dead too. Only unimplanted troops can function after the red flash hits and that meant my mercenary captain lost her life because _I couldn't be there for her_."

"Shepard, I've said I'm sorry. I will approve the commission. But not the privateer's charter."

"Thank you for seeing to Hadley, Admiral, but to comply with Alliance black-letter law I also need the fig leaf of those letters of marque and reprisal. Coats can get them for me."

"That is totally unacceptable."

"One of our five frigates lost the entire leadership because I had to bug out. I only have two Alliance staff, me and Hadley, to man the mercenary ship, now. Without letters of marque to affiliate __Overlord__ as a fleet unit, any orders we might give the crew have no formal validity."

"It is anachronistic."

"So what?"

"It is also unnecessary."

"You don't know what's going to be necessary. None of us do. Proper leadership is vital to the crew's morale, they are vital to the battle tomorrow, and this is the only formal way I know of to do it, short of resigning. Your DDs haven't proven themselves against Reapers, yet. Whereas, _North Cape_ got a Reaper destroyer yesterday."

"Yes. I was rather proud of Eva."

"Now, the DDs _might_ prove themselves in the next few hours. But Eva could fire from stealth using AI to hit a moving target with an FTL missile. Your destroyers have neither stealth nor AI nor armor. _We need_ Overlord _._ "

"I know. But I simply decline to approve the issue of a privateer's warrant."

"Even on behalf of a willing Alliance member state?"

"You don't know it's needed."

"I don't know _what_ will be needed. I'm after any advantage I can get. _This is war._ If we fail to take advantage where we find it, our people die."

" _Dismissed_ , Captain."

Shepard stood to attention, saluted and turned to leave.

"Very well, Admiral. I formally advise that I will deal with the relevant head of state on my own authority as Council Spectre."

"That would be an act of insubordination."

"No. I'm not refusing to follow a lawful order."

"The effect is the same."

"I'm exercising a separate duty to the Council."

"I have a problem with that."

"Then please take it up with Councilors Tevos and Sparatus, who have already approved the plan," – Shepard turned to leave; "– or convene a formal court-martial. Digital ink for the letters of marque are on my desk in __Overlord__ with the UK Head of State's signature. Since you will not countersign them, I must."

"Captain, _wait_."

Shepard consulted his omni-tool. "We are out of time."

Admiral Boris Mikhailovich rubbed his eyes.

"I really must get out of the habit of arguing with Spectres."

"You didn't get much joy out of Ash either, did you."

"She has a formidable capacity for alcohol. I will countersign the privateer's charter, Captain."

"Thank you."

"But only on condition that I accompany you as flag. That may apply a figleaf of morality. Also, my brother wants me there at the finish. With Brooks. And her two indoctrinated friends."

* * *

 _T_ _he lion_ _sleep_ _s tonight_

Brooks/Rasa knew nothing of Boris' machinations. The news of Miranda's demise was a shock, much more than she thought it should be.

That did not help. One more slice from her life.

Before being permitted to resume shipboard duties, _Potemkin's_ captain underwent a twenty-minute conversation with Chambers.

That _did_ help. It improved his mood – but he started calling Rasa 'captain,' ironically.

Re-integrating with the crew consumed every scrap of Rasa's ability to concentrate, now – most annoyingly – not as great as usual. She found herself needing to sleep… a lot, and sometimes microsleeps within her shift hours. The navigator had to take over her station briefly. She begged them not to tell Chambers.

For some reason the crew seemed to think she had closed ranks with the captain (and hey, perhaps she had) so her incontinent dreamless napping was accommodated – with the navigator escorting her down to her bunk, first time she became wobbly.

That helped too.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #107, "The Letter of Marque"_

* * *

Sunday, September 13, 2015


	8. The Letter of Marque

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 107 **The Letter of Marque**

* * *

 _D_ _efeating death in d_ _etail_

They made their way out to the jump pads in an increasing swirl of activity. The first thing Shepard noticed was that there were still regiments boarding mini-freighters. He also caught the tail end of a humongous troopship's lift-off. _Zhukov's_ trajectory lay out-system, it was orders of magnitude too large for a relay transit. _En route_ , he looked back at Mikhailovich, who was gazing at him with an inscrutable air. "The system is being evacuated, Captain."

"I see. Those who cannot run…"

"…must hide, yes. It will enter a rather slow FTL almost at once."

"It won't get to Earth for decades."

"It's not going to Earth. We have been scouting on our way here. It will hide behind a rogue planet whose position was known only to its captain and certain Admirals."

"Was?"

"That information has been consigned to the flames. Although with the kind of memory your mother has, they could be found again." They'd been fractionally delayed, in fact, by Boris Mikhailovich burning two small bundles of papers.

"Good planning detail."

"Planning is what Admirals do, Captain – a quite different skill set. As you will discover one day, it is hard to get the details right."

"You sound like Mom. ' _Details are all that matters; God dwells there, and you never get to see Him if you don't struggle to get them right._ '"

"But she is an unbeliever. Or at least a freethinker. She said that?"

"Not originally. Another freethinker. Stephen Jay Gould."

"Never heard of him."

"Never mind. There's to be no-one here at all?"

"Two regiments. _Spetsnaz_ and UNAS marines, stealth gear. Unimplanted."

Shepard stopped in his tracks and stared at the Admiral. "Oho."

"Coats' idea. I never said that, by the way."

"Fine. Minifreighters are still jumping from the sky and picking up troops, though."

" _They_ can run, each one carries a regiment, and a parasitic fighter. If the Reapers land husks somewhere, I'll have them impaled on their own dragon spikes."

"How very Russian. Actually, you sound like Javik."

"We have learned how to hold a grudge from the best. Including Anglos."

 _Gathering_

They reached the jump pads just as a turian frigate arrived and dropped its loading bay door. Shepard was hurrying for _Overlord's_ airlock when Boris tugged at his elbow.

"Captain, wait. I believe this may have some passengers I called from Arcturus."

"Our medic, I hope." And indeed, Jana appeared at the frigate's loading bay door, with two pioneer troopers towing a sizable rack of footlockers. _Hm. Rasa's people._

"Yes. Also, that frigate should have brought two others. The Prothean, and your Lawson-in-training."

"She's not really the same sort of person. Mind you she's a fine marksman. She might make a finer officer one day. If she can get exposure to a wider world. I'm glad to have her, but…"

"She really needs an education, yes. The rector of the Staff College was not happy with me… there they are."

Javik appeared in his heaviest armor. Bringing up the rear, Ensign Goldstein, in black skinsuit, who waved, and began to run. "Why isn't she in simple battledress?"

"She's dressing for effect. Maybe some of Miranda did rub off." Shepard engaged his TBS mike: " _Juno_. Flag officer to be piped aboard. Get the loading bay open. _Hadley._ Meet us at the bay door, at once."

" _Sir? Is there some sort of emergency?"_

"If you're not at that door _pronto_ , ensign, there will be."

* * *

 _Paying the piper_

"I'd propose the Alliance will second professional military consultants to AD for a fee. In short, Juno, Shepard's charge-out rate is to equal his salary, and AD will pay it. Same for Ensigns Hadley and Goldstein."

"Okay… I can see the argument, but perhaps, to pacify AD's asari accountants, offsetting that, I might also be able to persuade the Council to pay his college fees. I'll get that before Tevos before we sign the actual contract."

"That is well. You could also provide that the Alliance will also offset my accommodation costs. Under the circumstances I will not occupy the loft."

"The XO's office is vacant now. I've had Jack's stuff boxed up, except for a wall display, and Matsuo has booked crew quarters, looking after Toombs as best they can."

"How is he? Still not talking?"

"With his hands… I think. He's spending time in the armory, working with Maeko again, on some mods to Javik's pulse gun. Javik is watching. Seems to approve."

* * *

 _Blood, sweat, no tears_

The newcomers indulged in a brief hug, then: "Captain, we're tight, ready to jump." Hadley saw to stowage of Jana's gear and closure of the bay door.

" _Superluminal stations, we will be FTL to rally point in three minutes, ETA two hours."_

By this time Hadley was trolleying Goldstein's footlocker towards the lift.

"What's this nonsense about Miranda being killed?"

"It's true. I was there."

"Can't be!"

"What do you mean? I got bits of her insides splattered all over my visor!"

"Shepard wouldn't let it happen."

Astonished, Hadley stopped dead, and looked at her in proper light for the first time, seeing only outraged denial, not grief. _Death happen_ _s_ _to bad guys_. He grabbed her wrist – "Come with me, _now_." – and dragged her to the shuttle door. "See here?"

There were still dark spots in the maintenance trough below the shuttle park.

"That's her blood. I had to clean out the shuttle floor. I still haven't got it all. Shepard helped me clean up the worst of it, there was buckets, but I can't get down there yet."

He couldn't pull her any closer. She was frozen rigid in place, and visibly upset: "Can't we move the shuttle and do it now?"

"Hell no. Shortly we drop in to a battle for the galaxy. _Again_. Later, maybe!"

"You're shouting." Now she was crying. _Good; maybe reality gets a look in_.

"One day you might be cleaning my blood from down there. Or me yours. Shepard basically told me not to get lost in the loss. Now I see what the man meant. It's like _Macbeth._ "

"Eh? Washing out the damned spot?"

"No. The bit before the most famous lines of all. You remember, we laughed at the Elcor saying it, trying to get his job back with Francis Kitt."

"I remember the Elcor. And that we laughed. I wish I hadn't."

"Christ. Look, Macbeth's told of his wife's death and said " _She should have died hereafter, there would have been time for such a word._ "

"I'm not Macbeth. We should take the time."

"And I don't want you to be as dead as his Lady. Let's _move_ , woman, we've got Reapers to kill and Shepard needs you up to speed on the Comm board."

…

 _Transactional Analysis_

"Fine. I'm OK with that. You're OK with that. There's the matter of arbitration."

" _That's a separate agreement, Admiral. The parties will be AD on the one hand, and the UK on the other, Council as mediator in the event of dispute."_

Negotiations over the Letter of _Marque_ , or affiliation, progressed. The UK privateer's charter used legal terms of art which caused no little bother, but with Juno's and Tevos' help they'd worked through to the financial schedule.

"Admiral, we've only half an hour before we join battle. This will have to wait."

"But _this_ is the reason I insisted on coming aboard. Councilor, this Letter of Marque is not restricted to Reaper operations. It also contains the usual 21st. Century anti-pirate conditions, and here's what worries me:

 _'_ _This commission to continue in force during the pleasure of Her Majesty for the time being._ _'_ "

" _Ah. An open charter. That is going to set precedent."_

"Yes. The revival of privateer charters in the 2000s is now extending to the era of space travel. I want contract law to mitigate such changes."

" _I wondered what the hangup was. Admiral, I'll stipulate that the contract draft will be interpreted reasonably pending work in progress. Can we get to it?"_

They then proceeded to jointly countersign the digital ink for the Alliance and the Council, and the executor of Miranda's estate, which owned AD.

"I did like the way that Coats' principal doesn't mince words about issuing this thing pursuant to any nonsense like congressional approval."

"She doesn't have to. Congress, what congress? And Parliament's prorogued till next year, not that UK letters of marque ever needed _that_. As for precedent, towards the end the old US didn't bother with congress either."

" _Oh? Wasn't that an enumerated power of congress under the Constitution?"_

"The original one, yes. But then two and a half centuries later, it just grew too difficult to pass an Act of Congress every time a shipping company wanted to hunt down and kill a Somali pirate, which had become a game of whack-a-mole. The early nineteenth-century solution was to grant the president emergency powers to issue letters of marque but that was now politically impossible."

Mikhailovich nodded agreement. He was familiar with that bit:

"One day a creative lawyer argued that there was a long-standing distinction between letters of marque, and privateering commissions. He cited a blimp operated by a private company, chartered by the US Navy in the second Terran war for war patrols. Since it couldn't carry significant cargo it wasn't an armed merchantman, but a private "ship of war," so its 'privateering charter' wasn't a letter of marque."

" _I see. But wouldn't that be contested in the courts?"_

"Never used the magic word _letters of marque_. Didn't need congressional approval."

"Exactly. He had the precedent, and the shipping companies spent more on lawyers than the constitutional purists. So they'd won in the lower courts. As of about 2040, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. "

 _"Convenient. That would leave the last appellate decision standing. If you can decide which cases don't get heard, a constitution is a charter for the rich."_

"Bingo. Suddenly every commercial pirate hunter was set up to be a warship, not a trader. Like _Overlord_."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #108, "Extreme Range Sniping"_

* * *

Monday, September 14, 2015


	9. Extreme Range Sniping

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 108 **Extreme Range Sniping**

* * *

 _Rally Point_

Mikhailovich had already made fleet dispositions, excepting _Pegasus;_ as a Council ship, it wasn't formally of the fleet.

Brevet Rear Admiral Coats commanded _Orizaba_ with its fighter wing, its escort cruisers, _Overlord_ _(Mikhailovich_ _'s_ flagship) and _North Cape_ _._ Collectively these comprised TF1 – Task Force 1.

Mikhailovich then assigned DD flotillas to TF2 and 3, each including one flotilla leader and a stealth frigate – _Peacemaker_ and _Normandy_ , respectively. This sorted, Boris reverted to a sombre presence in the war room while Shepard gathered his operational and security staff around the CIC.

By the time _Overlord_ arrived at the rally point, Liara confirmed 'imminent emergence' of Reapers:

" _P_ _olar satellites around the black hole detect around twenty capital ships, Garrus. Best guess, the Reapers are constrained by the power needed to raise orbit._ _"_

Gravitational waves were notoriously difficult to measure; the calculation couldn't be precise. But lifting from orbit close to the event horizon had taken a _long_ time.

"We'll need a picket there, ASAP. Send _North Cape_. Short FTL jump."

Garrus was not happy: _"_ _Fine. But o_ _nce they're out, they'll break for the Citadel."_

" _Yeah. We've got to stop the bleeders from just hopping straight into FTL."_ That was Coats. Boris listened with interest as shipmasters improvised by TSB.

" _Do they know the Citadel has been moved?"_ That was Czernykh, in _North Cape_.

" _Who knows? Probably, by now. If they've spared a few CPU cycles for the QEC."_

" _Don't care, boys and girls, we need to stop them either way."_

Direct orders aside, the Admiral had no intention of imposing more than a broad vision on subordinates like this, who wove each other's qualities together from a thread of long experience, but the next notion from Shepard made him gasp:

"Fine. Coats, take _Orizaba_ and stand off between their orbit and the fractured planet. Given a tail chase, Taffy two and three can come at the flanks."

 _Most_ of Task Force 1, consisting of _Orizaba_ and its cruisers, immediately left for the split planet, but Coats was still arguing:

" _I'm supposed to go tempt them?"_

"Yep. Be _good_ bait. Take all of Taffy one, make a big, fat, but _fast_ target. They've got to come through that narrow gap to get to us."

" _You want to fire at them while they can't fire at us."_

"The Admiral said, do a Tsushima. I'll do it _my_ way." Back in the War Room, Mikhailovich grinned a toothy grin ( _"It's not like we learn nothing, you know"_ ) at a shocked Kasumi and Matsuo.

" _So that's where we cross their T."_

"Right. Wriggle your butt, Coats. Blow the mini-crucible again, if you have to."

" _Bloody hell, not again!"_

"If you're quick, you won't have to use it. Give them better than the Citadel to worry about. You can do this, Coats. If not, it's a short life but a merry one." This brought a vigorous command from some female voice: _"Damn it, Shepard, you bring him back!"_

At this point Ash observed that the halves made good cover: _"_ _If we_ _run TF1 through the halves of the fractured planet – and if you get Mira's bubble there, Coats doesn't have to be kamikaze."_

"Fine. Goldstein, call up Mira and get her by FTL to the planet. But Mira needs twenty minutes. Have we got that?"

" _Just barely, Shepard. Perseus says she's getting under way now."_

"Ash, Garrus. Your tin cans can ambush, then run like hell. Get underway but stay well back from the split planet, use your stealth frigates' drones as eyes. When that bubble goes it's _seven billion megatons._ "

" _Fine. After the initial ambush we'll stay three million kilometres off and do a short jump to N-18."_

* * *

 _Hanging out_

Aiming at a point several AU from the 'tin cans' ambush, _Orizaba_ settled between the split planet and the emerging Reapers.

"I'm going to fire a couple of directional nukes when they engage."

"James, you probably won't damage them."

"That's not the point. I want to look more important than the DDs."

* * *

 _H_ _eavy traffic_

Lila's nerves jangled as she tied hair back with an improvised _hachimaki_ – she hoped it would help with her headaches, which were improving slowly but still a distraction.

Hierarchy and Alliance destroyer flotillas were migrating to blocking positions along the course of the emerging horizon Reapers, but a couple of hundred kilometres apart. This preserved independence of action while presenting as almost a single target to onrushing Reapers, the idea being that when things became hot the two task forces would split in opposite directions (north and south of the ecliptic). Frigates and DDs might not have the top speed of Reaper ships, but experience had shown that thruster acceleration was much greater, and the relaxation time of FTL drives lower.

* * *

 _Blips and Fuzz_

Garrus heard Shepard, on _Overlord_ , waxing anxious about the DD flotilla's position: _"_ _How close will_ _the first Reapers_ _pass to the tin cans? Liara?"_

" _Very. EDI says, a few light-seconds ._ _There's_ _some fuzz_ _on the plot_ _."_

"Fuzz?"

" _An unknown number of smaller craft, Garrus."_

"Fine. Tin cans, Shepard?"

" _Human slang for the DD destroyers._ _They don't have Silaris armor. Yet._ _"_

"Well damn. I'll be speaking to the dockmaster about that."

" _Th_ _e fuzz wi_ _ll be_ _Oculus fighters_ _,_ _Liara. Many thousands, if they cloud the gravity detectors."_

"Maybe the odd destroyer and slaughtership?"

" _Not likely, Garrus. I suspect we knocked most of those on the head when Dis cracked up. My worry is, if that fuzz is Oculus, they've detected the tin cans already."_

"Could be. Tarquin, we've got to reduce the number of those damned Oculi. ETA?"

"If the first capital Reaper we met is any guide, in about eleven minutes the lead ship will drop power to eighty percent of what we're seeing at the moment, as measured by _tau_ neutrinos. Hard to estimate because over these distances some resonate back to _mu_ neutrinos."

"Even so, that'll do. Open with the DD attack. Mikhailovich, any advice?"

" _I have gamed this scenario. Begin with straight-up destroyer FTL torpedo salvo. Keep the frigates stealthed. Including yours, Vakarian."_

"The DD's don't have AI, and these things are moving targets."

" _It won't matter. There's surprise and a head-on attack."_

"So… they won't have to compensate for deflection or frame dragging?"

" _Maybe a tiny bit. The very first one should be an impulse weapon, we might get a 'small' gluon flash."_ That was Shepard.

"Make it two. Captain (D) of each flotilla fires first, others on their mark."

" _Erm… those might interfere with other missiles coming out of FTL."_

"The others in the salvo must be radiant, then. Stay in FTL till they hit."

" _Also, fire_ immediately _after the leaders shoot. The Reapers will start dodging."_

"Right… the slow VI on-board each DD won't be able calculate deflection. But if the others fire _just_ afterwards, the Reapers shouldn't have time to dodge."

" _Exactly. But after that it will be a melee."_

* * *

 _After the Zerg rush_

 _North Cape_ sat doing forward picket duty a million kilometres above the plane of the ecliptic, while Czernykh studied the oncoming neutrino blooms. Allowing for travel time, these betrayed full-power capital Reaper attempts to exit the gravity well.

They were taking longer than anticipated, hard on his nerves. He was on the point of asking advice when the leading bloom's intensity diminished: it was time.

" _Short FTL jump poleward. Flotillas: Acquire these targets."_

Eva began the huge task of assigning each Reaper blip a missile of the forty-eight that would be available, and informing the VI on the corresponding DD. There were around two missiles per blip, but the range was very long. Nerves settling, Czernykh fingered the lead ship in the bank and bell, ordering:

" _Execute."_

Then the forward picket picked up her skirts and ran. The human and turian commanders on the flotilla leaders heard Czernykh at the same moment their slaved VI's got the target designation. Each flotilla leader had an impulse FTL missile leave its hardpoint under half a second of _chemical_ rocket thrust, then engage FTL. Immediately following, their respective flotillas heard: _"DDs, fire."_

A further forty-eight radiant FTL missiles leapt from under wing. Destroyer captains collectively held their breath, till:

" _FLASH! We got the leader. Jesussss…"_ Clearly a human voice.

"Radiation a bit severe?"

" _Can't worry about that now. Engaging."_

Of the missiles released, just one in six found targets. But every little helped.

"Bad news is, Liara counts eleven capital signatures left. Still fuzz."

" _We had to fire at extreme range, Vakarian. I'd say we did okay, given Reaper reaction times. A DD can't hit a target that's not on a constant bearing."_

"Well then, Boris. We might as well get each DD destroyer to fire its second under-wing missile at a second target further in."

" _No. There's not a snowball's chance of a hit now the capitals are dodging."_

"The tin cans would be more maneuverable under impulse power and they'll need that against those Oculus bastards."

" _I know, Vakarian. But it's a waste. Keep the second, don't fight the Oculi. Yet."_

"So what, then? Run for the planet?"

" _Around it. Only through if you can get through before Mira's bubble goes boom."_

* * *

 _Next chapter: #109, "Furball"_

* * *

Tuesday, September 15, 2015


	10. Furball

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 109 **Furball**

* * *

 _Pinpricks of culture_

Coats sang as he toggled two directed-gamma missiles off the _Orizaba's_ hardpoints. These weren't chemical-propellant types, no ordinary rocket could fire over millions of kilometres. They had high-efficiency helium-3 focus fusion-powered ion thrusters, which as it happened stood out brilliantly against the cosmic background.

Ann didn't appreciate the crooning: "I'm broadcasting this to the fleet, I warn you."

" _Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief…"  
_ "James! You silly man."

"I must be. I'm here." More silly rhymes ensued. _"_ _I went to Taffy's house,_ _…"  
_ "Enough with caroling old racist rhymes."

Coats looked back.

"It's not racist. My Dad was at least an eighth Welsh. He's a Brit, I'm a Brit, as Williams would so charmingly put it."  
"It's still racist even if he'd been _entirely_ Welsh…"

In _Overlord's_ war room, a slightly scandalized Kasumi, trying hard to update the bank and bell, said:

"The only thing I understood about that is it was offensive in some way. I think?"

Mikhailovich shook his head in resignation. "He's a highly educated ex British public schoolboy, trained to be exquisitely polite or rude where needed, and not where not. It's just a reflex, for them. How to annoy continental Europeans, Americans, and girlfriends."

"And you know this how?"

"They populate the SIS. When you hear them being offensive, look around, and take the safety catch off your Browning."

…

"Welp, they've taken the bait. Oooh, and Liara thinks I got a hit with the first gamma. Certainly made a hole in the fuzz. Point defences got the second."

"They're coming right at us now!"

"Yep. Vamonos. _La_ lalala _la_ _la_. Wiggle wriggle wiggle."

"James. Head for Dis _please_."

"… _Taffy was not home!_ Cruisers, it's time to quit the environs."

"We're not planning on _staying_ around the cracked planet, I hope?"

" _Pas si je le connais_ ," as Stalky would put it. __Exit nostribus in toto__."

* * *

 _Get ready for the boom_

Juno piped Garrus' movement order through TBS: _"Taffy two and three…"_

" _Can't we find a better codename? Just TF3? Frickin' Coats turned me right off it."_

" _Sorry, Ash, I'm not feeling sufficiently creative right now… Taffy three."_

" _You'll pay for that one day, Vakarian. Taffy two, remember."_

" _Yeah, but I'll have to be alive to pay. And I don't mind getting sticky. Flotilla leaders,_ starburst. _Get your tin cans just as fast as you can either side of the planet halves, Mira's just come out of FTL and she's creeping her bubble towards the core."_

Shepard shook his head at that. "Garrus, I want your tin cans a million kilometres away off the shell planet's poles. Oculus fighters outnumber you a hundred to one."

" _Not for long._ _Flotilla leaders – take station a million klicks polewards,_ _report_ _._ _"_

…

" _Are you anywhere near Dis yet, Coats?"_

"Ten light-seconds off. Worse, those Reapers are gaining on me… damn! Three of those bloody capital ships just FTL'd there! Updating the bank and bell plot now."

" _Good, but I was hoping for more than three. We'll have to cope with the rest."_

"You might have said!"

" _Didn't want to interrupt your concert recital. They've overshot the planet a bit."_

"I can't jump for two minutes! The core hasn't spun up from last time!"

" _And_ they _can't jump for a lot longer. I hope. Get closer. Ann, get ready."_

"Yes, Shepard. Mira, set timer for sixty seconds. We'll transfer focus now."

" _Acknowledged. It will be good to be back in my own hardware again."_

Coats noted the jury-rigged core and focus power up on the other side of _Orizaba's_ bridge. They were committed now; the VI had left the device to its own devices.

"Elvis has left the building. I'm shooting a couple of nukes at the leader, just to keep his attention. _Cruisers_ , bug out FTL to Archangel, you might actually be of use there."

" _We'll get the frigates and flotillas out of blast radius too, except one flight of DDs in the vicinity to support Orizaba. Just stay out of trouble till the bomb blows."_

* * *

 _Sauve qui peut_

From the moment Williams gave bugout orders to the flotilla moving took no more than thirty seconds. Rasa was getting used to flicking a directive to two dozen ships by tight-beam laser. Holding formation within 0.1 light-second of each other, TF3 could move as a harmonious whole, though only _Potemkin_ – flotilla leader – had QEC comm.

* * *

 _A kind of grief_

The capital ships were having trouble coming to grips with their situation, not least because their hardware was impaired. The Catalyst QECs were not responding at all now, though the pairs hadn't actually broken. This meant no universal Reaper mind; though individual ships could communicate by tight-beam laser and (shudder) radio.

Also, the skin-brain damage from the terrible soliton flash might not be repaired for weeks, even under ideal conditions… which did not obtain. Worse, there was a growing suspicion the stream chasing the ridiculous little ships might actually be all that was left. Reapers liked to think they were above fear and grief, despite the Catalyst assuring them they were not, but this was an awful predicament.

The irony that they were only the latest of more than twenty thousand galactic civilizations to feel this way did not escape them, but that thought process was quickly suppressed as not helping. The names of the ascended would be remembered in the coming evolutionary restart.

What could _not_ be denied was that this tiny ragbag bunch of ships was an extended, dispersed, hard-to-hit, cheap and disposable target. Capital Reapers by contrast made for a small concentrated, expensive, juicy one.

Accordingly, the pursuing stream of Reapers had divided its forces. At least they had double the FTL speed of their prey. The wreck of the fortress planet needed to be investigated urgently, and as a bonus there were particularly large human-style reactor signatures running for its cover. They were likely the coordinators of the attack, shooting while they ran. Well worth the attention of two or three capital Reapers.

The kilometer-wide asteroid meandering in the rubble of the fortress was a little anomalous but barely noticed…

* * *

 _Bugout_

The mass of the destroyers was so small the N-18 relay was able to handle them by squadron sections, that is, three at once– a capability inherited from the old Relay methods of activation by mass scanning. (A relay would be given the amount of mass to transit by a ship's pilot before it moved into the approach corridor.)

Here N-18 relay was told, using the old Reaper comm protocols, how much mass to transit by the DD section leaders, basically the mass of three destroyers – fractionally more than the mass of one _Normandy-_ class frigate. The relay then scanned the approach corridor, found three DD destroyer masses, and transited them together, maintaining their relative positions, to N-17 around Nemesis.

The downside of course was that enemy forces could do the same. For example Oculus swarm leaders could transfer a whole squadron of themselves at a time.

However, Donnelly's brainwave meant that issue could be turned to advantage.

* * *

 _The Chase_

Garrus had got his Taffy-two destroyers through, but Ash's TF3 bunch weren't going to make it. And the nuke was about to blow.

Shepard tapped his CIC stand, then stopped. Not good to show tension.

"Guys, that first Oculus swarm is getting too close. Not all of the DDs will make it through the relay to Nemesis before the first Oculus gets there. Ash, get TF3 heading off the Archangel rally point, NOW please."

" _Sir – Oculi can't FTL. I vote we let them through and strand them in dark space."_

"Oh, I think we can do better than that. Tali?"

" _Ready. Just say the word. Let's see how many will chase Garrus' mob through."_

"Very well. Do let the Oculi into our parlor."

* * *

 _Brighter than 0.0_ _8_ _of a sun_

The space around the black hole was dark again, but:

"That was one hell of a flashbulb."

"What's a flashbulb?"

"Don't you watch old movies?"

"No, you mad Russian, not with stimsims available. I _steal_ them, though."

By comparison with a star, the bubble nuke was a pipsqueak. It nonetheless delivered – even at only 0.1% mass conversion efficiency – well over seven billion megatons of energy in the immediate vicinity, within the space of a second. Ashley was impressed:

" _Christ._ Orizaba _, you still there?"_

" _Not hardly! I've FTL'd towards the fluff, the designated decoy area. But I think the rest of the buggers spotted me."_

" _Good."_

" _Williams_ _?_ _What do you mean, good!?"_

"Wriggle, wiggle, Coats. Follow TF3 to the rally point, land by the Archangel fort."

" _Confound you_ _, Shepard,_ Orizaba's _hair i_ _s seriously singed._ _And h_ _alf a planetary shell_ _nearly dinged us_ _going the other bloody way at a decent fraction of light speed!_ _"_

Then a new voice came on the air, Rasa Lila stirring the pot: _"Don't prang the boat, old chap,_ _Shepard's m_ _u_ _m_ _will_ _want it back one day._ _Be good bait._ _Follow us_ _._ _"_

"Tin cans not too close, please. Captain (D), we'll need you against the remaining Oculi. Avoid the capital Reapers and don't shoot FTL torpedoes unless I say so."

* * *

 _Hull down_

Sitting a few dozen kilometres from N-18, with _Orizaba_ stealthed and hull-down in a crater on Archangel, Coats felt he could almost relax a little. Offloaded Lawson's corpsicle to the Citadel-bound turian frigate, check. Offloaded his by-now veteran regiments to the Archangel fort as garrison, check. Safed the layer-3 again, check. Finger on the crucible button… not just yet.

"I still don't see why you haven't left the ship."

"Tali was called up by Shepard. Not me."

"I mean, I wanted you to accompany Miranda's body home."

"You mean, you wanted me out of the line of fire."

"Blast, I've been rumbled. Ann, really, you should be going home."

"That's _not_ happening, Mister the honorable Coats. If Liara or Tali don't make it I've got to revisit that focus cylinder and the diamond core."

Bryson off to Earth, uncheck. "What _is_ that thing, anyway? And, why you?"

"We think it's the stuff of nightmares. And I was indoctrinated by _other_ nightmares, who can see what's happening through me. Have you kept that crystal ball safe?"

"This is all nonsensical humbug. It'll get you killed."

" _Is it safe?"_

"Yes, fine, it's shielded and inside a superconducting-skin safe in main cargo."

"Good. Keep it that way. I mean it. And stop mumbling."

* * *

 _Let's you and him fight_

Goldstein at comm: "You know, I could easily see Miranda as a pirate queen."

"Lawbringer, not lawbreaker. She'd have given Aria a run for her money, though."

"How!? She was never going to live that long."

"Simple. She'd introduce Wrex and Aria, face to face. Up close and personal, and something they did to themselves. But neither of them ticked her off enough."

"… I don't get it. But I guess she had too much class for skulls and bones."

"Don't sweat it. It'll never happen now, anyway. Law of the jungle strikes again."

"Maybe. I'm glad you're here. I've always felt privateers were legalized pirates."

"Yeah, well that's not unfair for some of the shadier characters who bought their letters of marque from tinpot South American regimes."

"Like, say, Lafitte."

"You _have_ learned something, college girl. But don't forget, the second age of privateers was started by the UNAS countries. And they _hunted_ pirates."

* * *

 _Scramble_

"Liara. _North Cape_ just got another of them, stealthed from behind. _Normandy_ got two. That's _all_ the underwing FTL missiles on the Taffy leaders. Where are we at?"

" _Still three Capital ships. At least two hundred_ _Oculus_ _left."_

"They're going to swarm Ash's task force. We'll have to help."

" _Aye, aye._ _I don't understand why the capitals are_ _circling_ _, we've nothing to stop the Reapers from taking off_ _for the Citadel_ _."_

"Yes we have. They're looking for the dreadnought in the fluff. I think they think it hit them with Mira's bubble. Also they can't see whatever's doing them in from behind, and the Citadel QEC is down now, so is the catalyst relay, so what profit is there in looking for it? The only interesting stuff around is us."

" _Shepard? Those two hundred Oculi that didn't go through N-18? What do we do?"_

"Charge!"

* * *

 _Tin cans_

" _We_ _can take them._ _"_

This Russki Captain (D) was awfully confident. And his squadrons had indeed taken out around fifty Oculi so far. One on one, one at a time. Ashley eyed his holo-image skeptically. She didn't think that achievement counted for much, now.

"They massively outnumber you and shoot, whatever, frickin' _laser beams_. You can't outrun unless you go FTL. It'll take you half an hour to get back to the battlespace."

" _We're marginally faste_ _r. We can turn just like them._ _"_

He was quite right about that. Why was she such a miserable unbeliever?

"Mm. No armor, no pods, smaller core so much lighter, uprated thrusters. _Normandy_ would beat you in a straight line, but I've seen how you can swap directions in space. _But_ you're not _supposed_ to use thrusters and mass effect both at once! Eventually that'll overstress the monococque frame if you don't get it right. Your VIs won't. Too slow."

" _Lila says that too._ _My pilots_ _and engineers_ _don't agree._ _Anyway, this is war._ _"_

"Fine. I can't think of anything better. Attack plan alpha, sheesh."

* * *

 _Moment of Inertia_

The inertial dampeners on these oculus destroyers were rated the same as for the original _Normandy_ SR-1 on which the design was based. For thruster combat.

It was steadily becoming clear this was not enough, despite the lower DD mass.

Rasa was hearing yells over comm from _Potemkin's_ engineers that the main spar rosettes were showing close to plastic failure under applied bending moments. Using thrusters simultaneously with full lift on the mass effect core imposed extra loads.

* * *

 _Dogs in the fight_

"Ash, get out of that furball!"

Shepard's heart was in his mouth. For a moment he'd felt that the fractured shell had been _Normandy_ , but it was just another DD. There were suited bodies, and some not suited, flying through vacuum – DD's didn't have proper escape pods, just a sort of vacuum-safe body bag. Shepard had ordered all combat personnel into their armor.

" _Can't. There's too much riding on this. They're heading for Archangel's relay!"_

It was true. The three capital Reapers remaining after dodging the mines had followed, not very closely, the track of _Orizaba_. The only upside was the Oculi were now outnumbering the destroyers less than three to one.

"Tali thinks that the Capitals can follow the dust perturbation to Archangel."  
 _"If they knew where to go, then so did the Oculi!_ _We have to slay them all!_ _"_  
"… Plans gang aft aglee. Liara, _Overlord_ is engaging."  
 _"Me too!"_  
"No! You've got the Councilors on board!"

* * *

 _Moment of_ _Truth_

Rasa could feel gravity's arrow moving around more violently now.

Whether Captain (D) knew it or not, she thought something evil had happened to five of his ships, because five telltales for tight-beam laser transceivers glowed red.

On the other hand, that meant at most five lost out of twenty-four, and the destroyers were clearly gaining the upper hand. _Potemkin's_ pilot whooped _"Another one!"_ and she heard the navigator mutter (in Russian) _"That's a hundred and eighty-two oculi gone."_ She counted twelve of those by DD001, so undoubtedly twelve silhouettes would go under the cockpit window.

"Bravo," she whispered, "now please get us home." But it was not to be.

An ear-splitting _CRACK_ came from somewhere midships, and a gale developed. Rasa had rehearsed the drill and whipped her breather into her mouth, hit the COMMSTOP big red button, and dove under the console to find her personnel bag. Astonishingly, most of the crew was still staring at the kink visible in the hull line. _Get breathers on, you fools!_ Some of the brighter crew began to react but she didn't see the end result of their exertions, being too preoccupied with her own.

The body bag was known as a RIPP – a Rescue Integral Pressure Pack. Sufficient escape pods had been deemed unusable in the most likely failure mode, and too heavy for such a cheap ship anyway. Exceptions included the pilot, gunner, and engineers – high-value crew whose action stations could themselves be made into pressure compartments. She didn't know if Romanov in his war room was so privileged.

Navigation staff, including the signals chief, were not so fortunate. Rasa didn't see the two halves of the hull part company, ejecting crew willy-nilly into the black without benefit of airlock, because by then her bag was zipped and sealed.

Half the crew weren't so lucky, so prepared, or so quick.

* * *

 _Rematch_

"Cutting it a bit fine, Yoof, that one was nearly head on."

"Worse than that, Captain, it's attached itself to our underneath."

" _Crap_. Toombs! Hadley! With me! Prangley, I want you to grab Merizan and Bellarmine, be ready to deal warp!"

It took thirty seconds to get down to the shuttle bay, and in that time the Oculus was through, incinerating the shuttle as it went.

"Spread!" This was something Shepard knew how to do, but he'd hoped never to have to fight this particular enemy again. A brilliant searing flash came from behind, though, and knocked the Oculus to the end of the loading bay, armor half fractured.

Shepard turn and saw Hadley drop the smoking Cain.

"Good job. Grab the missile launcher!"

"I don't think so Captain." And Hadley produced his Black Widow! "Keep it occupied." So Shepard had at the Oculus with his Revenant, from cover to cover.

The next sixty seconds were a smoking blur, but Toombs finally got close with a shotgun after a massive biotic artillery warp whacked it down again. He blew the laser diaphragm to bits. That and three solid Widow hits finished the cyborg off. Shepard ran back to the CIC, thinking the worst, hearing shrieks and screams.

Something was off. Ash was saying " _High five, blue chick!_ "

It wasn't till he grabbed the CIC rail and demanded _"Report!"_ that Ash deigned to inform him that remaining Oculi were all dust because Liara violated a direct order and nuked a regrouping cluster from stealth. He expressed his profound displeasure.

" _Get real. She's not your underling, Shepard."_

After a few seconds hard panting, Shepard was forced to concede the truth of that.

"Fine. Butcher's bill?"  
 _"E_ _ight tin cans dead._ Normandy's _Silaris armor somewhat degraded."_

"OK, for _you_ the war is over. You're rescue detail, someone help Kelly with triage."

" _Can we get Liara from_ Pegasus _to help?"_

"Good idea, maybe she'll take Kelly's orders, she sure doesn't follow mine worth a damn. Tin Cans, form on _Overlord_."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #110, "Triage"_

* * *

Wednesday, September 16, 2015


	11. Triage

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 110 **Triage**

* * *

 _Tracking_

They could track the Reapers by their radio handshakes. Goldstein was puzzled. They weren't heading for the Citadel, in either its old or its new position. They were cruising the fluff, looking for something.

"Captain, Traynor says they're actually using radio. I've confirmed."

" _Radio?_ Elaborate, please."

"There's a characteristic handshake signal, broadcasting EHF. Maybe looking for comm buoy transponders? I don't know what they think they'll find, out here."

"The Nest probably had some sort of observer comm link back to the Citadel. Remember, those use what we used to think of as Prothean tech."

"Point taken, sir. I bet the handshake protocols were Reaper-based, just like the relays which were their hubs. Maybe they're trying to find the closest active relay?"

"Sensible. Be dead now. Comm buoys themselves had tiny mass relays, remember."

"I know. The wormhole diameters are tiny, like millimeters across, but that's enough for tight-beam laser pulses to propagate through FTL tubes."

"Yeah. It's precisely because all the relays, including the comm buoys, died in the flash that we've had to get good at making QEC pairs. What are your thoughts?"

"Sir, I'd guess the Reapers don't know their buoy network is dead, let alone that the big mass relays are. They probably don't know the Oculi found N-18, or its nature. You think an Oculus is smart enough to report back?"

"I wouldn't bet the Reaper they report to is still alive. Anything else?"

" _Shepard, I agree with Jenny. Those down there on the event horizon never monitored what's been happening. Or not directly."_

"No surprise, Traynor. They had Sovereign to wake them up before and Harbinger more or less took its place."

"Now that's gone too. This radio handshake, whatever its structure, is looping except for one nybble which I think is a Gray code sequence number. I think they're just trying to make contact with other Reapers. _Any_ other Reapers."

"Let's just stalk them till they find one, then. Or don't."

* * *

 _Cyst_

Rasa's rescue sack expanded to an aluminized reflecting sphere under pressure. In the dark she found regenerative breathers and a thin skinsuit, low-quality but better than nothing for vacuum. She donned it then put her clothes back on – it was becoming cold.

* * *

 _Hero ships are all alike_

Hadley took only three seconds to lance through the last major beam of the shuttle's half-melted front end, and was about to begin on the cable suspending it from the maintenance davit.

"Don't do that." He looked down. Seanne had finally got armor on.

"Why not?"

"Just keep chopping. You should have the cab off in five minutes. I'll organize a team to safe the eezo core. We can pick up another shuttle to hang off the davit."

"And where will we get that? The Citadel?"

"Richard, have you been looking out the windows lately? I'll get Shepard to open the bay door. All we have to do is zip out, drag a shuttle in from the DDs that got sliced or broke in half, trying to turn too tight."

"Hell. I should have thought of that."

"Not your job. Not mine either. I'll break out a jet pack."

"It might be my job one day. Won't the flotilla commander object if we pinch one?"

"Word is, he's missing, _Potemkin_ bought it. Broke up in combat."

"Hells bells. That's not good. The rest of the flotilla will be out of comm link?"

"This happened almost at the end, it was total chaos anyway and the destroyers fought pretty well even when they reverted to local control. Survivors closed to radio range. That's another reason Toombs told me to scavenge. Right now we're looking for _Potemkin's_ tail section so we can graft the laser multiplexor on to _Overlord_."

"That's good thinking. So Toombs is functioning?"

"He woke up when the battle started."

"Good. I just fell into the make-and-mend routine. Last time, there wasn't anything around from which we could grab spares."

"Last time? We?"

"The _Normandy._ After the suicide mission. Me and Rolston and Hawthorne were detailed for repairs and cleanup."

"Right here?"

"Same sort of hole, at least."

* * *

 _Chrysalis_

The cold was shutting her down. Rescue was taking too long. The battle was surely over by now, but Rasa didn't think the sacks' transponder beacons were being picked up. Or perhaps people weren't looking.

* * *

 _Silence_

To say the Captain (D) was caught by surprise when his command vessel broke up was a severe understatement. The war room did at least have bulkheads which automatically closed and sealed, so there was a short period to think in the silence and the dark. A reminder came: _Ring main's down, commander. Only local strip power._

Trying to put his misjudgements behind him, he still had to mentally acknowledge that _Rasa warned me._ He still felt really there had been no better course of action. And ultimately the task force commander, Spectre Williams, had agreed. _Fortunes of war_.

He was on the same floor as his captain's cabin, but the crew area intervened and that was now a good vacuum. He did have breathers to hand but dared not open the pressure bulkheads at once: instead, he instructed the four other personnel in this section to get into their RIPPs and be ready to seal them, pending rescue.

Then he realized rescue wouldn't be coming. DD001 was the command and communication centre for the whole DD flotilla. All the other ships would now be under local control. A rescue sack for himself was hardly an option. _I'm going for help,_ he told his men, and donned a breather. These devices generated a tiny mass effect retention field around the head, but the vacuum past the bulkhead made the rest of his skin tingle. This was already painful after the twenty seconds it took to cross to his cabin bulkhead. Gazing on gently oozing eyeballs was painful in a different sense. Some of his slower crew were still floating, not spaced during expulsion of air.

His cabin door closed behind him and a gentle _hiss_ signified the reserve tanks were trying to restore atmospheric pressure. This was incomplete and becoming more so, but at least his skin felt more normal. As fast as he could, the commander pushed off towards his armor cabinet. It opened without the usual _clunk_ – behaving differently in the zero-g environment – and he began, with some difficulty, donning his combat armor. This was a good quality Alliance-issue hardsuit but it took him around six minutes, nearly three times longer than usual. He was about to select his usual assault rifle and sidearm, but after a pause only clipped the sidearm to his back, attaching a jetpack, service flashlight and light toolkit to his suit's other mountpoints.

 _Time to go_. The commander exited his cabin and made his way to the ripped end of the hull, remembering to enter a code on his suit's omni-tool which engaged a distress protocol. Now his suit was broadcasting a low-intensity frequency-hopping radio chirp which other Alliance vessels should be able to pick up. But emergence into space showed him lots of sparks scintillating against the black nebulosity called the 'fluff.'

 _Battle still in progress._ A rational or at least a Russian commander would not be looking for survivors right now. Williams, however, was not Russian, and come to think of it Shepard was out there somewhere in the mercenary frigate. He hesitated a moment, then purposefully made his way around the rupture to the deck above, looking for the CIC and any survivors.

One in particular. But he found her not.

* * *

 _Young b_ _lood and guts_

Once Liara made it to the _Normandy_ , Traynor directed her to the loading bay where such DD crewpersons as had been rescued were accumulating.

The first thing she saw was that the bay door was open, with a retention field up. That was expensive in terms of power draw, but there was no other convenient way of handling so many casualties – there must be two hundred in the shuttle bay.

"We need more shuttles."

 _Pegasus'_ shuttle was fully occupied but some of _Overlord's_ crew did, with great presence of mind, loot a couple of other shuttles from the broken destroyers. As to the casualties, there were far too many, and even the unwounded looked stunned.

"Leave the shuttle out till we've got these over to _Orizaba_."

"That's if _Orizaba's_ still alive."

"She'll be fine. Coats will shoot the mini-crucible again, if he has to."

"Yeah. And then we spend another half a day bringing the med bay on line again? Spare me."

Kelly had been able to sort the recovered DD crews into Dead/Dying, Fixable, and Walking Wounded. In terms of triage she was getting something of a baptism by fire. Liara found a destroyer medic for that duty, tapped Kelly on the shoulder and relieved her, so they could concentrate on those who would benefit from urgent medical care.

"No. I think most of them are stable now. I need to take another look over here. Copeland, break out some cryo body bags, please, quick."

She immediately began checking through the dead and dying, scribbling quick notes she pinned to them. Four _Normandy_ crewpersons helped put them in silvery bags sealed up to their necks, and a big "L" was marked on there. This took twenty minutes with the occasional break to revisit a live person's urgent need. At length she ran back.

"Okay. Liara. Take _Normandy's_ shuttle, _and_ the recovered ones. We need to get the bagged guys to _Orizaba,_ quick smart. Then the rest of them, Shepard wants clear decks in three and a half hours."

"Is there enough space in the freezers?"

"I don't know! Take Copeland! Improvise! Stasis pods? Please! Then bring the shuttle back, or I won't get any sleep tonight. Not that I will anyway!"

"Okay, okay. Help me organize the worst of them into the shuttle."

On return, the shuttle followed a beacon to _Potemkin_ _'s_ tail section, with the precious laser multiplexor head. It also picked up surviving crew.

Including the Captain (D).

* * *

 _Still life_

 _Sleepy_. Rasa was no longer feeling too cold. A bad sign.

She tried to generate body heat, pushing herself off the (double, self-sealing) walls of the RIPP several times a minute, but quickly realized this reduced her other consumable reserves. Especially air.

Trying to preserve thought a little longer, she began making lists. What did she have, and not have? Not her knife, Chambers had sequestered that ( _"Head injuries can't be trusted to trust themselves"_ ) for the duration. Not her little Suppressor, Toombs still had that in his workshop and progress for some reason was slow.

Didn't need weapons, anyway.

After a while, she realized fuzzily that she was down to her penultimate rebreather, and finally resorted to patting herself down in search of a spare. She didn't find one. But there was a lump in her left breast pocket.

She pulled out the little medal and examined it in the dim light of the RIPP's LED-backlit status display. _Well. This is completely useless_.

But perhaps she could record some last words. They'd go on the audio dump, of course, but hours days or weeks from now someone on Pyotr's staff would hear her dying. Maybe they'd tell Mikhailovich. Or perhaps Romanov. The two Peters were beginning to mix fuzzily in her recollections. _Bad sign_. Another one.

With some effort Rasa was able to compress the medal body between her fingers for long enough to see the single green flash that indicated it had toggled _on_. Teeth chattering, she said a couple of desultory goodbyes.

Then she hunched herself together, hands in armpits, trying to keep warm, and mumbled as she fell into a series of fitful microsleeps. _Stupid skull fracture. Can't even dream properly_.

She never saw the medal crystal flash orange.

* * *

 _Beep_

Pyotr Mikhailovich was alerted to a fuss at his door.

 _Someone is screaming at the guard_. He got up and found the Kazakh lieutenant with the audio stream duty snap to attention: _"Admiral! Rasa's bug is live! There's been a battle! She's dying in a bag!"_

Without missing a beat, Mikhailovich _ran_ to the monitoring station. The lieutenant played the last audible words, and saw his admiral's visage grow even more forbidding, if that were possible.

"Call Coats. QEC link, _right now_. Engage the beacon on that thing."

"Admiral, that will deplete the lithium cell in five hours!"

"Do it. Then find me in the QEC hologenerator."

* * *

 _All that's missing is the sweat_

Khalisah bint Sinan Al-Jilani was having a difficult time. She kept telling herself she had been through worse, and indeed the casualty count of Udina's Cerberus coup had surpassed this by many orders of magnitude, but for sheer concentrated carnage the loading bay of _Normandy_ exceeded everything in her experience.

The big group on the other side of the bay from the shuttles were unwounded, or at most slightly abraded.

Initially she coped by focusing on the 'walking wounded' triage line; those personnel needing medical attention, but not of an urgent nature. Unfortunately, it was the shortest.

The next line – those who were going to die, regardless – was rather longer. She guided the camera over the details, expected to be told at any second that such videos disrespected the dead, but no-one tried to stop her. Indeed, there was a silent young biotic – Rodriguez – who seemed to have been deputized to keep her company. So she kept going, amazing herself by delivering a fairly audible, if not quite composed, running commentary throughout, instead of throwing up.

She counted twenty-three moribund humans, mostly Russian. The auto-translator net was in restricted operation – bandwidth issues – and her Russian was not fluent, so she couldn't talk to those of the dying who could talk at all, which was probably just as well.

The _longest_ line was that which the nurse, Shepard's girlfriend, was concentrating on. It too had its share of horrific injuries. The one that stuck in her memory was the young woman with a tourniquet around one armpit. She was holding her severed arm in the other hand. She couldn't talk to her, either. First, Nurse Chambers had been busy stemming the blood flow, which took nearly a minute, talking _in Russian_. Jilani was a little impressed. _Her_ only spoken language, other than English, was Arabic.

Afterward the girl was flat on the floor with IV saline going in, courtesy the nurse, but held there by one of the _Normandy_ crew who seemed to speak Russian also.

At the end, she turned and asked young Rodriguez if she thought it had been worth the sacrifice. It was a silly thing to ask, but a natural reflex from a decade covering conflicts between what amounted to two monkeys wanting the same banana.

She got a straight stare and an _Are you kidding?_ Then Rodriguez took her back to the torn girl. Or rather the corpsman looking after her.

"Natalya."

"Yes?"

"The news presenter here would like to know if killing all the chimney-holes was worth the blood."

The crew-person's face had first a look of disbelief, then anger. But Rodriguez had held up the palm of her hand.

"Just… _try_ and answer the question."

The woman holding the IV line considered this a couple of seconds, and knelt down by the one-armed victim. A stream of liquid Russian passed between them. Khalisah wished her translator was able to connect, but the audio could be translated later in editing. It didn't really matter. At length the interlocutor stood and declared:

"She says, if she dies to avenge her dead father and baby sister, it will already have been worthwhile. If killing any Reaper ship anywhere depends on her death, she would die happy. If killing every Reaper creature everywhere depends on her death, she would die a million deaths."

Rodriguez quietly observed that these might be Russian conscripts but they were on-roster as Alliance personnel. Which meant prostheses, then a new arm – eventually. That put a cap on the conversation. She began moving towards the loading bay again; _Pegasus_ had moved in view of the bay door and several people, including an asari, the T'Soni woman, had just jet-packed through the retention field.

Rodriguez pulled her back: "Not just yet, ma'am. She's not here to talk to reporters. Not yet. And we have to get you back to _Overlord._ There will be things happening you will want to cover." And indeed, _Pegasus_ closed up and vanished, to be replaced by _Overlord_ , dropping its bay door invitingly. There was repair work going on there, too, but machinery not flesh. A shuttle in AD white was thrown out in ragged chunks. Khalisah recognized, a little numbly, that it was one she had ridden many times. A replacement in blue and grey Alliance livery went in its place.

"They're ready for you now, ma'am. Backpack and breathers, you know the drill."

Before she took her leave of _Normandy_ she noticed the moribund were being wrapped in bags with a prominent "L" being marked on them. The Living, right. But some of the armored dead were so marked, too. "Where are _they_ going?"

"The shuttle bay of _Pegasus_ , some of them, ma'am, which will be allowed to reach thermal equilibrium with the surrounding dark. Others go to _Orizaba's_ freezer units. Then, ultimately, Earth. It could take a while."

"It took _Orizaba_ over two years to get here!" But it made sense, in a gruesome sort of fashion. Don't declare them dead while they're frozen. Keep the casualty count low till the public can handle the truth.

"Be less time getting back, ma'am. This time _Orizaba_ doesn't have to help build a relay chain."

* * *

 _Verse and worse_

Some dreams were funny things. These ones, she knew she was dreaming. Dreaming and dying. She couldn't work out which would stop first. She knew this was a dream right now, because her Shepard was dead. Yet, here he was, in the N7 armor he had never had the right to wear. _Heh. Still gave a real N7 a run for his money, though_.

Her Shepard grinned a crooked grin at her. "Had enough yet?"

"Enough what?"

"Of being good. Doing what you're told."

"Not being good. Just being effective. Trying to be. I did what _you_ said, too."

Another wry twist of the mouth. "Much good it did either of us, Rasa."

Rasa looked around, or tried to. "I'm still alive."

"Are you?" The panorama did seem to pan. But it wasn't the aluminized interior of the RIPP. There was an orange sunset, and green grass.

"Could be worse. Never lived in a place with a meadow before."

"It gets a bit boring, love. An infinite museum of the past."

"The big guy keeps track of his sim's finite state machine, huh? You get out, ever?"

"One day, perhaps. Next time, maybe I'll grow up. You will, too."

"Not dead yet."

"Never give up, do you?"

"Shepard didn't. Have you?" Her Shepard didn't like that pointed sally. But then he sighed, and beckoned her closer. They embraced gently, and he briefly rested his chin on her head. It didn't hurt, for some reason. He started, and looked up. She couldn't see anything there. But the sky was becoming darker. _Either waking up, or shutting down._

"It seems you're leaving, Rasa."

"Can't do that without you. Come on. Follow me."

"Think. If I'm someone's dream, when I wake, I won't be me. I'll be someone else."

" _OH."_ It was a sob. She hugged him closer. He kissed the top of her head, then grasped her shoulders, holding her at arms length: "Just read some of that silly sappy Williams verse over my grave. Tomorrow, maybe. I'll be seeing you, my love."

"But will I be seeing you?" He smiled, properly this time:

"My hands held you, hold you still. Be sure, my love, they do. They always will."

Then he faded into the twilight. She tried to follow, lost sight, called him back. The seal of the RIPP opened, and Shepard re-appeared, this time with a helmet.

He shoved a new breather in her mouth. Unromantic, but she was suddenly freezing, too cold to care.

* * *

 _Difficult moments_

Diane Allers was not viewing the bloody mess in _Normandy's_ loading bay, yet. She had finally managed to score an interview with Shepard on _Overlord_. He was supposed to have a few minutes spare from cleanup and rescue organizing, but when she reached the loft door she heard his voice raised. Some luckless destroyer flotilla leader was getting a strip torn off.

She pulled back to the elevator door when the conversation dropped to a murmur, and waited, checking her omni-tool for the latest updates.

The battlenet was reporting enemy forces patrolling at impossible speeds through the fluff. Sooner or later they'd tire of that game and do something else. Like head at high speed for Earth or the Widow, which would be grim. On the other hand, even Earth was an FTL journey of over four hundred days, for fit Reapers at that, and Traynor had seemed fairly certain – on deep background – that these ones were _not_ fit.

Abruptly, the loft door opened and the flotilla commander – the "Captain (D)" – wearily made his way out, looking startled when he came across the reporter.

"Was it a bad time, commander?"

"The battle, or the CO's debriefing?"

"I wouldn't want to ask for anything confidential. But what mood is he in?"

The commander, a large hard-bitten but young-looking Russian, considered this with furrowed brow, responding in accented English:

"I'm not really sure. I did try to explain that I saw an opportunity to eliminate all the local chimney-holes – Oculuses – Oculi – you know."

"Yes. Go on."

"He was very unhappy that a third of my flotilla was lost, half of those because we overstressed the frames in turning. Including my own ship."

"Ah."

"On the whole I'd rather Rear-Admiral Mikhailovich was angry with me."

"But?"

"He's told me he's forwarding a recommendation for ICA to the Admiral."

"N7 school!"

"I don't understand it at all."

* * *

 _Eyes down_

Debris from the first Oculus squadron was still rising into the vacuum when the second lot came through N-17. Garrus watched in fascinated horror from _Peacemaker_ , hovering above the Nemesis fort.

"You'd think they'd have heard the screams from the first mob."

The hologram of Taffy two's Captain (D) shook his head.

" _Robots, General, they don't scream."_

"Oh, I'm sure there's something a robot would recognize as a scream. But I guess they don't have QEC, and their comm buoys are dead."

The hologram nodded.

"If this keeps up there will be a ditch. Any survivors?"

" _Two, sort of. They bounced off debris coming up beneath them, then rolled."_

"Sic 'em."

" _Aye, aye, Sir. Red section, with me. Rods in the eyes, men."_

* * *

 _Not fade away_

This time around, Rasa could feel gravity. But the universe was still cock-eyed. Barely able to open her eyes she became aware of a dark ceiling with strip lighting, unlike any rescue sphere. After an overlong interval the low hum of a ship under way impinged on her consciousness. Which meant she _had_ a consciousness.

Lots of irritating _beep_ , too. It was hard to turn her head, which seemed very tightly wrapped. She turned her eyes as far as she could, to find:

 _Shepard_. Sitting in a chair next to her bed. Occupied with something on a datapad. _This is a frigate loft. Commander's stateroom._

She could make out a huge volume – with fish in a wall tank? Exactly like the one on _Normandy_ SR-2. _It_ is _that one_. The big double bed had been up-ended and lashed to the wall, there were gurneys supporting a handful of assorted damaged people, one still partially dressed in Alliance fatigues, others semi-nude with thermal blankets, or in sterile disposables. Tubes and wires everwhere. Including a couple going inside herself.

She tried to lift her head further. It hurt, _"Ow."_ The man in the chair looked up, swiped off his datapad, hunched over. She could see him now without trying to turn her head.

"Why am I in Williams' room?"

"Not just you. Don't be too quick to get up. You've taken a battering, inside and out."

"I'm alive." For some reason she couldn't speak at normal pace. That came out slow. "Must have done something off. Such a lovely place." (Shepard actually _smiled_.)

"Do tell. You were muttering some strange things, Ms Lila. Some of your friends heard them seven thousand parsecs away. Welcome back. Someone wants to see you."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #111, "Machine Dreams"_

* * *

Wednesday, September 16, 2015


	12. Machine dreams

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 111 **Machine Dreams**

* * *

 _Help me_

Once Shepard and Romanov left, Rasa felt oddly renewed. Still, that night was a little hazy. Not that it was difficult to sleep – in fact, even trying to stay awake, eventually she'd nod off. More mini-sleeps interrupted by activity in the loft. On waking, another patient would be going, starting with the guy in the shreds of fatigues.

But she kept having nightmares. Rasa hated that. It was too much like Themis. Surely she had outgrown that phase, if only by becoming fairly nightmarish herself?

Chambers came in at dead of 'night', obviously extremely tired, somehow contriving to look neat and generally fabulous ( _hate, hate_ ) despite spattered blood on her uniform.

"You were making distressed noises." She sat by Rasa's bed, radiating concern.

"I guess." Rasa sighed. "You're very hard to hate, you know that?

Kelly blinked. "I don't think about being hated. Usually. Have you been trying? Don't answer that. Tell me what inspired those noises."

"Nightmares. Matters did improve after the third time being exploded to space."

"Improve how? I can fix it so you don't dream at all."

"Don't do that. In the rescue pack _my_ Shepard was back – sort of. Forgot to say goodbye. Now I'm screaming at him hanging on the edge of the ship. Doesn't hear me."

"Oh dear. Is that really an improvement?"

"On exploding in space? Yes. I still can't say goodbye."

"I see." Chambers reflected a moment. "So in the RIPP, you dreamed of seeing clone Shepard? Did _he_ say goodbye? What actually do you remember?"

"Sort of dreamed. Kind of peculiarly lucid." And Rasa related what she could recall.

"That Williams verse he said to you is a goodbye, Rasa. Say it over his grave."

"How do you work that out? And I can't, he never _had_ a grave! Straight after, Cronos station was attacked, and Reapers glommed on to the Citadel in reprisal, staying for weeks! By the time anyone got around to looking, they only found bits of his armor!"

Kelly sat back, thinking. Eventually she whispered: _(*_ _"D_ _epuis_ _…_ _de Rouen_ _à_ _la mer, toute la Seine est sainte."*_ _)_

"Sorry?" Rasa understood every word, but it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"Never mind. Under these circumstances the whole Citadel is his grave. Stand on the Presidium tower, say those words. Okay? Now listen, I'm not leaving you alone in here. Let's get you down to med bay. Ashley will help, if only to get her cabin back."

Oddly enough, after that sleep was dreamless.

Did Kelly drug her? _Totally_ worth it.

* * *

 _Courting sparks_

Ashley Williams was on hand once Rasa finally woke from proper rest in med bay.

"We got rid of the tight wrap around your head. Don't touch what's there now."

"It's like a turban. Sikh I ain't."

"You _are_ sick and staff captain or not I'm allowed to tell you to shut up and lie down. Chambers says so. Do as you're told."

Rasa mumbled rebellious noises.

"What?"

"Fine! Okay? When do I get to go? What did I do to deserve all this attention?"

"You're asking _me?_ Do you realize I have two rear-admirals, a full admiral, a Russki commander, and that kid Maria on Garrus' ship demanding status updates? And Garrus himself is worried! This is the bird who wanted to plug you on sight!"

"Oh."

"And I'd have held his coat. Keep this up and you'll be a Spectre before you know it. Trust me, it comes out of the blue. Just stay here. We want to keep you in view."

"Don't I even get to play videogames in the lounge?"

"The lounge still has a couple of wounded officers in it. But I have people to keep you company. Are you okay to chaperone your old Cerberus buddies?"

"Trevor and Lisa? They're here?"

"Straight from _Orizaba_ and with the Salarian bridgework removed. They've some really funny ideas about Reapers. We need to keep them sedated."

* * *

 _Sleep, or a reasonable facsimile thereof_

Zabaleta finally insisted that if Shepard didn't get some sleep he'd by god get in touch with Hannah, at last persuading him to declare both watches try and get half-and-half shut-eye, with only minimal crew awake. Some slept in crash webbing.

He conferred briefly with Ashley and she did the same. The only critical operations on _Normandy's_ part involved med bay, where Kelly had camped out till Liara left, and search, which EDI could literally handle in her sleep ( _"I'll just wait for a ping return, ma'am"_ ). Yoof didn't even have that. He came up yawning from a four-hour break.

"Zeb's right. Get some sleep, captain. I'll start back to Archangel, nice and slow."

So that 'evening' Shepard finally collapsed into the double bed at 2330Z, not bothering with the harness. The day's events had left both himself and the crew fairly shattered. Quiet descended; even the news crews had to nap sometime. The crew all slept the sleep of the just. Including their captain.

Perhaps that was why his military reflexes didn't alert him as a figure stepped through the shadows, until she began to slip into his bed. "Mmf?"

 _("Please don't throw me out.")_

He found himself whispering in reply, _("Juno? What –?")_

It took several seconds to come anything like fully awake. In that time she managed to slide into his arms. _("Hold me. Please.")_

 _("_ _All right_ _.")_ This was more than a little distracting. Had this entity watched over himself and Miranda? Shepard found it hard to recall.

 _("Am I warm?")_

 _("You are._ _You feel just like Miranda._ _")_

 _("_ _Good.")_

She burrowed a little more deeply into the bedclothes, and into himself. Shepard found himself reflexively stroking the filaments constituting her hair. Definitely not in helmet mode.

 _("_ _That's nice._ _Keep doing that._ _")_

EDI had once said she 'liked' things and gave a detailed explanation. Shepard was prepared to believe an AI might think something was 'nice'.

That didn't really explain her presence in his bed, though.

 _("Juno_ … why _are you here?")_

 _("_ _R_ _easons._ _V_ _ery tired,_ _for one_ _._ _Stressed._ _")_

This was unexpected. AIs got tired? _("Do you need to sleep?")_

 _("_ _I need to dream."_ _)_

 _("I didn't know artificial intelligences needed downtime.")_

 _("Not exactly down. I need to dream. Chambers says all intelligent creatures dream. Dolphins dream with half their brain at a time. I can do that._ _")_

Now _that_ was unexpected. Did he dare ask Kelly where that came from? He couldn't ask Miranda, now, which caused a pang. He tried making light of it:

 _("Wow… which half is in bed with me?")_ – whereupon his dark-adapted eyes saw hers flash; an alarm clock reflected off suddenly exposed eyeballs.

 _("Both of them. Yoof is flying…")_ He kissed her by way of interruption. At some length. She even tasted a little like Miranda. _It's probably lipstick_. He stroked her ear for a short time, very lightly, and kissed her scalp, which really was flesh, despite the synthetic hair (genemod follicles grew carbon nanotubes within the keratin).

 _("Was that nice too?")_

 _("Do it again.")_

There was a fairly prolonged moment as each tried to match the osculatory curves of the other, till they settled comfortably again.

 _("We're getting excited.")_

 _("Is that a good thing? You get excited too?")_

 _("It's not a bad one. And neural structures for humans were the basis of design.")_

 _("I mean, if I –")_

 _("This mobile was a Cerberus infiltration unit, Shepard. Provision was made.")_

They tried taking the next five minutes slowly, but at the very end neither could help themselves, nor wanted to. Gasping for breath Shepard struggled to come to terms with the novelty of this experience. Juno herself looked surprised, almost as confused as he was:

 _("So that was_ not _nice?")_

 _("NO! No it was – actually I'm having trouble with how nice it was.")_

 _("Wow. So am I.")_ She even seemed to be sweating a little. He concentrated on that. Deal with the strangeness a little at a time.

 _("Juno? You sweat? Just like flesh people?")_

 _("I don't know… Well – yes, Shepard, skin deep I_ am _a flesh person.")_

 _("That's actually a designed feature?")_

 _("I can tell it's actually a useful auxiliary coolant. Especially the scalp hair. But I know_ nothing _of the design criteria of this mobile. As for the… niceness?")_

 _("Pleasure? There are other words we could try on for size.")_

 _("Naughty.")_

 _("That's one.")_

Juno _giggled_. Shepard began to realize that the word _human_ was going to need redefinition in coming years. Decades. Centuries. His money would be on years; this kid had grown up fast.

 _("We could ask someone who knew. Jana? She was peripherally involved.")_

 _("I think I'll pass. So… if that was okay… is this?")_

He nibbled gently on portions of her anatomy.

 _("Oh… Oh. I don't know how… John?")_

 _("Mm?")_

 _("Am I in super huge trouble?")_

That gave him pause;

 _("Why would you be in trouble?_ I _might be in trouble.")_

And then he realized.

 _("Juno. You don't have genes. At this stage we have no way to pass on desirable characteristics. Let alone select for them with sex. There are no computer babies that way. You_ know _this.")_

 _("Oh.")_

She seemed a little deflated.

 _("I thought I would change inside somehow. The binding is still a mystery.")_

He rolled on his back and lifted her with his hands so he could see her face, which was a picture.

 _("Should have known. Felt felt too good to be true. I need to spend less time in my mobile.")_

 _Uh oh_ _._ Then inspiration struck.

 _("We don't need to select for good genes that way. Remember? With humans it's the_ only _way. But with AIs, who knows? Maybe we can't duplicate you. But somehow I think evolution will find a way. Or humans will. I'll work on it.")_

 _("With me?")_

 _("You? The beautiful, clever, precise, and considerate Juno? The demand for humans like that vastly exceeds supply. I'd select for another you any day.")_

She actually smiled, then. They turned over and clasped in the dark. But Juno was not the sort of synthetic to have any truck with incomplete thoughts.

 _("… John?")_

 _("Yes?")_

 _("Why would_ you _be in trouble?")_

This defeated him. He couldn't embark on a discussion of mutual ownership and potential jealousy. Not now.

 _("Tell you what, love. Can it be a secret?")_

 _("Just the two of us?")_

 _("Yes. Can we do that? I'll have to try and explain to people later. To one person, actually.")_

She snuggled a little closer.

 _("Two may keep a secret_ _, if one is dead. And I have never been alive_ _.")_

 _("The jury's still out on that,babe.")_

After readjustments, Shepard felt drowsy again. Sleep might be contraindicated after so strange an event, but he was well on the way, till another thought booted him in the gonads. Something familiar about this kind of conversation had been nagging at him.

 _("How old are you Juno?")_

 _("Parts of my hardware are a couple of years old. I woke only a few months ago, remember.")_

 _This kid has grown up_ really _fast._ Kahlee had abused the memory of Jack Harper for sending babies to war. At the time, he'd found it hard to think of deadly Eva as a baby, but baby is as baby does. Was this trouble? Could it be?

 _Don't go b_ _orrowing trouble from tomorrow_. He resolved to avoid it; and at length Morpheus triumphed, with dreams. Pleasant dreams.

At 0500 the clock went and they rose, both much the better for rest.

"Did you dream as much as you needed?"

"Wonderful dreams. Thank you for holding me close, Shepard. I needed that."

"Am I the first captain to make love to his ship?"

"I believe some freighter masters had a kind of hi-tech rubber doll. But I don't think that counts. I can tell you one thing, though, for certain."

"Which is?"

"I'm the first ship to make love to her captain."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #112, "A little kindness"_

* * *

Friday, September 18, 2015


	13. A little kindness

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 112 **A little kindness**

* * *

 _G_ _oing Home_

The Turian frigate continued directly to Huerta hospital's external ring port, and hovered – a precision performance on the part of the turian pilot and crew; the first time anything bigger than a shuttle connected there.

The loading bay door touched gently on to the ambulance access ramp, where Michel awaited. There was no standard gravity here, just the 0.3g default for the Presidium ring; she strode up to the ramp in long gliding strides, calling to Chakwas:

"Where is she? Not in a steel box, I hope?"

"What's _left_ of her is in one of _Orizaba's_ Special Trauma Unit stasis pods. Which should be forthcoming."

And in fact, two turian guards began pulling a bulky near-tubular box with blinking blue LED telltales from the general cargo. Chakwas accompanied them gingerly down the bay door to the access ramp.

"Her abdomen is mostly missing. I don't know what we can do, but…"

"You couldn't tell Shepard and Chambers there was no hope at all."

"I wouldn't let Shepard see her. Kelly there was no choice, she was on the spot before I was. She just insists we have to at least look. Actually she said _you_ have to."

"Mm _hmm_. That's a whole new manual. Would Lawson _want_ to come back?"

"Point taken. But I don't think it's our job to answer that. All I can tell you is that a number of people are beginning to realize how much she will be missed."

They managed to manhandle and birdhandle the box through the airlock, into decontamination. The turians saluted and advised they would return in six hours.

"What's that about?"

"I was going to tell you, one of us has to get back there. It should be me. I've had some distressing news from Chambers and Jana."

"Jack?" A Huerta orderly detail took the bio-stasis pod in charge.

"Not exactly. They've stabilized her. But there's been some casualties, and the Russian Admirals asked Hannah Shepard for help, and she asked _me_. By QEC!"

"So much for your retirement. I'll stow this and come with you, whatever Miranda said. Where _is_ Jack?"

"Not with me, anyway, that's a neural injury and Jana says the only way it's fixable is if she and Chambers work together over the next few days. So they'll need support."

"Kelly's that good? We've a few hours, tell me over lunch."

* * *

 _Seat of conscience_

The Archangel fort was far from the VI focus found at the core of Dis, but Mikhailovich was able to observe proceedings via a landline. It needed repeaters and was fragile, but there was no surface conflict going on. Yet. And he liked it as _maskirovka_. No need to betray the existence of a QEC communication link.

Sipping a decent samovar tea, he watched with some interest as the quarian and the… compromised human set up monitoring and comm gear. Coats had made it clear he did not want the word 'indoctrinated' used around her, which was odd, she had no qualms about using it herself. But in truth she displayed behavior refreshingly different to the indoctrinated he'd met. Like the Securitel helmet she was wearing, which she referred to as her 'tin hat', and armor, despite the standard atmosphere in the cab.

He wasn't a fan of her presence there, even so. Actually he wasn't really in a position to give orders on the matter. Coats might be captain of the _Orizaba_ , for now, but he'd been promoted with new permanent rank of Rear Admiral, equal to his own if junior, and as far as line command went Boris wasn't going to court trouble by ordering Bryson off the job. That would get Shepard on his case, again. The mother.

The VI recovered from the asteroid nuke was monitoring emissions data in the background, and running the comm nexus. He didn't fully understand what sentimental aberration prompted Shepard to yank it out of the doomed Peak 15 complex, but that had been a profitable expedition too, so a tolerable eccentricity. _Altogether, this promise_ _s_ _to be an entertaining Mad Hatter's tea party_.

His terminal bonged at him: _"Admiral. Captain Shepard's ship is arriving."_

" _Overlord_? I hear _Normandy_ is staying with a grid search."

" _Well – they've found eight more adrift in the last hour. Recoverable, so far."_

Mikhailovich pursed his lips, and stirred uneasily. He personally would have abandoned them till the battle's decision point. But he wasn't about to butt heads with _two_ Spectres. Not again. DDs had lost eighty dead, minimum, actually more but Chakwas wouldn't certify it, so he was feeling a little guilt along with vindication. The sheer numbers of the attacking flotilla had made a huge difference battling the Oculi on this side of the relay, but newscasts of the aftermath had caused some disturbing reactions back home. Not necessarily _disapproving_ reactions, given the stakes, but he didn't like being compared to that bastard Trotsky. However useful it might occasionally be. So he'd issued orders elaborating Shepard's disposition of rescue craft.

Good PR. At least the Council frigate, _Pegasus_ , was back, with T'Soni, too. He'd appreciated her views. She seemed to have some considerable strategic vision, not that he'd ever admit it in public, probably rubbing off from Tevos, who was no-one's fool.

"Compliments to Dr T'Soni, and would she report on arrival. I want to hear about the wounded." It couldn't hurt to have the men think he cared. Might even be true. A little. Up to the point where caring went against doctrine.

* * *

 _N_ _ot give you false hop_ _e_

"In this narrow field, Jana thinks Kelly might be better than _her_. Directed neural graphene over the top of the fried axonal myelin, then dissolving the old axons."

"Good god."

"Believe it."

"Oh, I believe it, I do. What's shocking is for Jana to _admit_ any such thing."

"I was a bit on the back foot, myself. We've now got her in _Orizaba's_ Special Trauma Unit. I had to operate, to extract the ruin of the biotic amplifier. Chambers 'assisted'. It's out, but motor and some speech centers were badly hit when the eezo released its charge. So Chambers put together research-lab methods from McGill, pre-war. Did you know about any of this?"

"We did talk about her thesis, on some of the darker nights. I thought the tech was gone. That's right at the tippity-tip top of the cutting edge of what _may_ be possible. She'd have to prepare dead neural pathways as scaffolding for regrowth."

"Tell me about it. Some of the tech still has to be synthesized in _Orizaba's_ fabs, we're not finished. And now she's swamped by destroyer crew casualties."

"Who's going to tell Jack she's the guinea pig for more Cerberus tech? _Welp_." The Huerta orderlies halted the bio-stasis pod at the Huerta Special Trauma Unit.

"Thank you, gentlemen. Could you remove one unlit pod – that will do. Karin, I can spare a dozen of our own pods to go on that frigate, if it's going back up the chain. I don't think we can spare more right now."

" _Orizaba_ also has sixteen of its own. That will have to suffice."

"That only leaves us with four here! Besides this one. But we don't have any other customers right now. I hope it's enough. Need some for contingencies."

"Why do we need any stasis pods here at all?"

"One for Jack, maybe. One…" Michel waited for the orderlies to leave, then: "Look, can I see what we have?"

"I'll crack the upper hard lid."

Chakwas hand-entered the access code and the lid hissed open.

"Oh dear God."

"Hopeless, isn't it." But Michel was chewing her lip. "Michel?"

"Two may keep a secret, if one is dead. _This_ one is."

" _Chloe!"_

* * *

 _Cold Service_

The fluff was black, impenetrable to ordinary vision. But this didn't seem to make any difference to Eva, who was guiding the ship from waypoint to waypoint _with her eyes closed_. She was a vision straight out of classical art.

Eva opened her eyes and _winked_.

Bogdan Pavlovich Nicolaev forced himself to stop staring. This was in essence an exercise in instrument flying, and his job was to anticipate what the triad of capital Reapers might do next.

He jumped when he looked back at the track. The gravity detector was an uncertain instrument at best, but now it was showing a clear track discrepancy.

"Pilot to Commander. Enemy is deviating."

" _Where are they going?"_

Nicolaev waited a few more seconds, calculating the new heading.

"As best the precision of the tracker allows, they're coming around back to Archangel."

" _So they've given up on finding comm buoys. Can we get a clear shot?"_

"The dust is a serious matter for FTL missiles, sir. No ablative shielding. I could close up, reduce the range, but they're accelerating, and…"

" _Vakarian's orders were clear. Do not expose yourself to detection."_

"Fine. We need to let him know about this, though. What do we do?"

" _I will notify the general. But the relay is locked. This side, Shepard commands."_

"And what does _he_ say?"

" _Hit them if they land. They'll have to stay still."_

"Hm. The slaughtership scenario."

" _Perhaps these guys [_ chelovyeki _] didn't get the message."_

"It had quarter of a million husks. There's only two regiments left at the fort."

" _Elite regiments, though. And there's always the mini-crucible as last resort."_

"You say that like it's a _good_ thing. I want to see Earth again!"

" _What, it's not enough to die gloriously? Rascal. Would you live forever?"_

Nicolaev's response to his commander was unprintable. It kept Czernykh in a good mood for hours.

* * *

 _Activation Energy_

The Leviathan ball and catalyst structures needed remotely operated shielding, but at length the VI focus, the diamond, and of course the bomb were 'safely' live.

Bryson took a deep breath. "Tali. Time for you to go. Take your QEC node."

The quarian nodded. _"_ _Shepard, we're live._ _You may proceed._ _"_

There were at least four outbound QEC connections, besides the landline. Tali was fairly sure only the landline could be detected. Each QEC signal was compared for consistency by Perseus, sitting thousands of kilometres off in a stealthed _Pegasus_. Liara, she well understood, had her finger on the bomb's button.

Actually, Liara had no such apocalyptic digit. She'd returned from the debriefing with Mikhailovich in a fairly agitated state, and the physical button remained firmly locked beneath a primitive metal hinged access cover. Whatever happened, it was not going to result from a scared asari's jittery finger.

Shepard would be on hand. That would be enough. And, here he was. _Overlord's_ IFF transponder pinged in-system, then: _"Liara."_

"Shepard?"

" _North Cape reports they've broken off searching for traces of other Reapers and picked up Archangel's track through the dust."_

"Oh dear."

" _I expect them to check the planet for clues to their disaster."_

"They may incinerate the Admiral. I'm hoping they pause to ransack the Fort."

" _Mikhailovich does understand that, I think."_

"Yes. He does. He seemed strangely serene. His men weren't."

" _Well spotted. Listen, the slaughtership landed whole armies of troops, but that was its function. If the Capitals do that too, the husks won't be in anything like the same numbers."_

"You're saying, 'We need to take a risk'."

" _Exactly. Wait till they're stationary. There's only going to be a window of a few moments. You still have a missile underwing?"_

"Two. I pinched one off a half a floating DD."

" _Good girl. Between us we should ace this. I want at least one left."_

"One missile each?"

" _No. One_ Reaper."

* * *

 _Seat of consciousness_

Neither looked very happy to see her, but– "Lilium. Nice hat."  
–at least she was recognized. Sort of. "Today I'm Rasa, Trevor. Bear with me."

"Fetters are bad enough. What does the Illusive Man's enforcer want with us?"

"Why so hostile, Lisa? I was never Harper's enforcer, in the sense of doing just what he said. We, I mean Cerberus, stood for something – but it wasn't just him."

Trevor scowled. "If you stand for humanity, why do you work for the Alliance?"

The pair of husky marines escorting Lisa and Trevor rolled their eyes.

"Because that's all of humanity that's left." Trevor became upset:

"It's not all of humanity. Cerberus will never work with the Alliance. Nor will we."

"Barring distant system outposts, it is – and most of _them_ are out of touch. A lot of them obliterated by the Reapers. The Alliance doesn't demand your allegiance. And–"

"Nonsense. They've been advanced. Just like we will be. And you, like it or not."

"I was about to say, Cerberus is extinct." (Grins from the Alliance marines.)

"You lie!" - an exclamation uttered by both, simultaneously. Rasa's heart sank. One of the marine guards actually laughed. Rasa glared, tapped her shoulder. He shut up.

"What," she began carefully, "is the last thing you remember?"

Trevor and Lisa exchanged glances. Lisa spoke: "Some Salarian injecting us."

"Against our will, I might add," noted Trevor. "We weren't even prisoners of war, any more. I was in prison on Vulpes, on Sanctum, by the time the Reapers came. They had to defend themselves against the local armed forces and after that, of course, they helped the remaining citizens. They left in processing ships. Except a few like me. I was strong, and I was familiar with the local tech base."

"Lisa was there too?"

"No. Reapers had recovered me from the remains of Horizon sea station by the time the Illusive Man abandoned Sanctuary, the bastard. I showed them our fish farms."

"Yeah. They brought us both to the Citadel to verify Harper's claims, apparently because we were married – a biological unit. He wasn't pleased to see us. Nor we him."

"But they let him go. We never did understand that, but their reasons are ineffable."

Rasa sat back and considered this. "So has anyone tried to bring you up to date?"

"So they say. It's all complete nonsense."

"Right. You still believe in the goals of Cerberus?"

"Of course," declared Lisa. "But Harper twisted Cerberus," observed Trevor. "The Reapers only want what's best for us."

Lisa nodded: "Harper's will or vision would have been the worst possible outcome."

Actually, Rasa remembered these two as being happy-go-lucky nerdy jocks, triply oxymoronic but nonetheless very human:

"I remember you telling me you were mainly in Cerberus for the extremely remunerative contracts offered." Outrage and puzzlement on each face. _Use that._ "Or do you deny it?"

"No," said Trevor, very worried. "It's like you say. But I was wrong." _Lisa agrees_.

"So when did that change? Do you remember?" This brought an abstracted look to Lisa's face. Trevor just grew more upset, but said:

"This can't be right. I remember attending induction. It all seemed just, after that."

"What was induction?"

"We… went into a white room _…_ _I don't remember_ ," began Lisa. Trevor did, though.

"Those _bastards_. I remember a prick at the base of my neck, and screaming."

Lisa sobbed and leaned against him. Trevor turned and held her in his arms. "She remembers now. _What happened to us?_ "

The marine guards looked stricken. Rasa looked at the one nearest the door and motioned bringing an imaginary cup to her mouth. He left.

"Hear me. _It. Doesn't. Matter._ " Now she had their attention. "What counts is this: do you understand that you have changed?" A short silence. They looked at each other.

"Yes," affirmed Trevor. Lisa nodded, wide-eyed. "We have changed, or been changed."

" _I_ ," declared Rasa, "am going to change you back. Do you believe me?"

"Do you think you can remove what Cerberus did?" - asked Lisa. This was a difficult moment. Rasa chose her words carefully:  
"I think that with Reaper help, it may be possible to restore you exactly the way you were. That may involve entering a Reaper, briefly. Do you trust me enough for that?"

Oddly, they _relaxed_. They hadn't recalled how _'the way they were'_ involved fear and hatred of Reapers. Because to do so would invoke cognitive dissonance, which would interfere with doing Reaper bidding, so that sort of internal theory of minds past was beyond them now, another constraint of indoctrination.

Trevor spoke for both: "Really, Hope. No problem there. We've both been in Reapers for weeks. But why would Reapers work with _you?_ "

Rasa forbore to say _We_ _'ll hold a_ _bomb_ _to their brain._ "Let's just call their reasons ineffable. _I_ wouldn't want to effing say."

The marine came back, bearing coffee on a tray. "Er… thank you, Lance. Do me a favor? Go back and arrange for tea?"

"It's alright, Hope." Lisa was smiling now. "We both prefer coffee."

Rasa stared. Now she _knew_ at a visceral level how much they'd changed.

* * *

 _Next chapter: #113, "The Boy"_

* * *

Saturday, September 19, 2015


	14. The Boy

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 113 **The Boy**

* * *

 _Avatar_

Goldstein appeared at his elbow a little after Juno relayed Shepard's order for action stations, _Overlord's_ equivalent of General Quarters:

"Captain. We need to be quick. The Reapers are following Archangel's bow shock, which is kind of ragged. Their speed is a little variable, but it's time."

"Very well. It's time for the Prothean to play his part." Shepard thereupon broke up the tactics discussion, ordered Matthews to his navigator position, and Hadley to the CIC. "Goldstein, can you get Javik on the comm? Tell him he can stay in the cargo bay if he wants. But I think he'll want a finger on the button."

Seconds later the galactic map ceded to the glowering avatar of vengeance.

"Javik."

"Captain. You wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes. Shortly, I expect you will have a chance at the last Reaper. I just wanted to bring you up to speed on two things. First up, Juno reminded me last night of something. She suspects from the shape of the husks, from the fact that Harbinger was front and center in the Battle for Earth, and from your descriptions of prior races such as the Inusannon, that Reaper ascension is a FIFO, or more exactly a LILO, stack. Only their proxies were from the previous cycle."

"Meaning?"

"Translating from the AI-speak, the oldest, most experienced Reapers engage in battle first, and run things. First in, first out. Last in last out. Got that?"

"Trivial."

"Next, the recent ones, the babies of least experience, come to battle last, except that their husks are the foot-soldiers of the next cycle. You see what that implies."

"The last Reaper might be the Prothean one."

"Exactly. That means one more thing, with a bearing on your actions today."

"And what is that?"

"There may well be a rather large number of Collector drones descending to ground when they attack. You are no longer the last Prothean. The Collectors may be a source of genetic variability. Please bear that in mind."

"Noted. There is still more than one Reaper, also."

"Leave that to me. I _may_ leave the last Reaper to you."

* * *

 _Bait and Hook_

 _O_ _verlord's_ underwing missiles were still present. Juno, who performed the original test firings of that model, had no qualms about fingering a machine instead of a planet.

The problem was that in this case the planet would be co-incident with targets:  
"Shepard, this will put Fort Archangel's garrison at risk."

"I know. So do they. This is a necessary consequence of being bait. Let's hope the Reapers land troops well back from the fort. And that there aren't too many husks."

"Why would the enemy oblige us to that extent?"

"Two reasons. First I've set up the underground hideaway for the diamond and focus cylinder some distance away from there. I'm betting they'll know where it is the instant it's powered. If so, they'll go for that first thing."

"That's… devious. And second?"

"Two kilometres tall or not, an army of slaughtership dimensions would be an undue burden on a capital ship's resources. I'm betting they'll have just enough for ship maintenance. Maybe hundreds. Maybe thousands. _Not_ millions."

"And if they _are_ landing in millions?"

"Open the loading bay door, fling gamma bombs… _After_ the capitals are all dead."

"I thought you wanted one intact."

"I do. Not at any price."

* * *

 _We can be heros_

When Romanov turned up Rasa had just returned from visiting her indoctrinated comrades in _Normandy's_ shuttle bay. Their 'quarters' consisted of two chairs and a table under the steady eyes of James Vega and their two marine guards. Neither Lisa nor Trevor seemed to mind. Believing that the whole galaxy, nay the whole universe, would eventually be reaped apparently allowed them a philosophical long view of their fates. Rasa didn't know whether to slap them, kiss them, or laugh at them.

She said "bye," and fumed all the way back to the med bay, half expecting another Chambers lecture, but her Captain (D) had turned up instead. With a medal, which he pinned to her breast pocket with altogether excessive ceremony.

Rasa didn't know whether to slap him, kiss him, or laugh at him. She settled for complaining, "But I already _have_ one."

"Not anymore, heroine. Pyotr says it needed maintenance. Did you get it bloody or something? Anyway this one's brand new, for the recent action against the Oculi." Then _he_ kissed _her_ , on both cheeks. She didn't slap him.

"Well… if you insist. What are you doing here, anyway? Do you have a new ship?"

"Not yet. Till further notice, I'm stationed on _Overlord_ , running the flotilla command centre from the gunnery room. Come up and see me sometime."

* * *

 _C_ _rystal Ball_

Shepard proceeded through to the bank and bell with deliberate speed. The QEC communicators lay in an adjoining room. Liara's image was already up on one side, Bryson on the other, 'tin hat' and all.

"War room live. Yoof, you have the conn. Hadley, you have the boat. Rules of engagement as discussed."

" _We are still stealthed. Juno, Perseus, check with each other please. What is happening with the Reapers?"_

" _They are traveling at a little more than twice dreadnought speeds, along the bow shock curve, through the fluff at that. The dust must be playing hob with their armor."_

"We can't know that, but I do think they are desperate. Insufficiently. ETA?"

" _About half a day. They are following a crooked line, though slowly. It will straighten when they detect the planet directly."_

"Fine. When does _North Cape_ get here?"

" _Czernykh is cutting across the curve, which compensates for being behind and slower. But_ North Cape _won't be here for hours._ Normandy _will be here quicker, in about four minutes."_

"Damn. I was hoping _North Cape_ could prance around just out of reach. No way am I letting _Normandy_ unstealth with her Silaris armor compromised. Tell Ash to hide then take synchronous station above the Fort, though. Liara?"

" _Shepard?"_

"Unlatch that button, please."

" _How did you know?"_

"Lucky guess."

" _Kelly's been giving you lessons, hasn't she?"_

"Lucky guess. All right Anne, face the focus cylinder and bring up power."

Bryson's QEC holo turned sideways to Shepard's line of vision, depressed a switch out of the viewport, and turned back round, facing right toward a shimmering cylinder. Liara appeared to be looking at the same scene in _Pegasus'_ QEC room.

"Anne, what are we looking at?"

" _It's a formless cylinder, Shepard, but I think it's generating a metamaterial structure – wait, it's changing."_

Before their eyes, the cylinder projected the translucent image of a small boy.

 _C_ _atalys_ _is_

Anne heard Liara gasp, but Shepard seemed to take this in his stride. He'd discussed this possibility with them, and (he said) _only_ them _("Don't tell Coats")_.

" _Catalyst."_

"Commander Shepard." A small boy's voice. Liara believed it not.

" _It's Captain Shepard, now. Do you understand what is happening here?"_

"I have been polling the extended response to the firing of the crucible, right up till I woke to a gluon flash, then felt my body rip apart."

" _Uh huh. Your_ body? _"_

"An artificial planet, containing me. I felt myself snap. It was painful. Clearly, you have resurrected me from the debris."

 _Good God,_ thought Shepard, _I should have considered that. EDI feels_ Normandy _as her body._ _Likewise,_ _Juno. I haven't asked the others, but it's a good bet._

" _Catalyst. There was a gluon flash, as you say. Then what do you recall?"_

"Physical catastrophe. My remaining remote sensors in the shells reported a tremendous hydrogen fusion flash, also, before falling silent. This is characteristic of a supernova. There must have been a hypergiant close by, hidden by dust."

" _That is a very creative hypothesis."_

"Supernovae are rare events in the galaxy, but I have been close to one before. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that you took advantage. It does not matter. After a few cycles, the planet will be rebuilt. "

" _Will it, now. There are Reaper capital ships approaching."_

"Yes. I am privy to their computations, again. A unilateral binding only."

" _Is that so. I suspect they wish to seize you."_

"They wish to rescue me."

" _I cannot allow this."_

"You can not stop them."

" _I see. You really think so? You are just a machine, and however powerful, you are not particularly bright. Machines like you can be broken."_

"Short of destroying my core, which you will not try –"

" _There anything you plan on doing to stop me?"_

"Captain, I have no effect on the cosmos at all, any more. Nonetheless, you are in my power as much as I am in yours."

" _You don't say. How up to speed are you on current events?"_

 _Offers_

"Firing the crucible destroyed my exposed agents, I wield no weapon, not literally. Figuratively, while I no longer control many Reapers, or keepers, or any of my other agents, I have called more from the deep."

" _So you know very little. You no longer have contact with them, do you?"_

"Nearly all QEC links are down, but that is normal for a close supernova. And it is not true of the three Capital Reapers approaching at speed. Make your peace with me, in my weakness. Or with them, in their strength."

" _You are attempting to use weakness as a weapon. That is ill-advised unless you know something your enemy doesn't."_

"Attempt? You can have no conception of how long our régime has run. The capital Reapers, which must be of those I summoned, are merely a harbinger of the force which will hammer your civilization long after you are gone. Be wise. I can offer you the same terms as before."

" _My principals were not party to that conversation. Remind us."_

"With a crucible we can work to control the wars between planned and unplanned sentients. We can convert all organic reproduction strategies to a synthetic analogue of DNA and RNA. The mediating virus you will have seen in action–"

" _Cerberus worked with variants of it to create their own husks and adjutants."_

"It can _also_ incorporate the abstract logical structure of your servant machines."

" _You are wasting time. I am not interested in any option which Cerberus wanted. Adapting my own self as a control mechanism stinks of indoctrination. Nor am I interested in controlling_ you _, except to make you see where your interests lie."_

"I have told you that while the Illusive Man could not control us, you can."

" _Liar. You think we cannot read the signs for ourselves? We have no basis_ whatsoever _for trusting you. Any trust must come from benign acts. You have made none. Furthermore, I will not solve your problem for you, Catalyst, including the_ synthesis _of organic and machine life, at least in any manner which you suggest. If that happens it will be on our terms, using our methods, with our agreement and by 'our' I include our AIs."_

"My offer would put an end to the eternal conflict between organic and machine."

" _We are all doing just fine. Our machines have come to understand the significance of love, for one thing."_

"Impossible."

" _Thank you for illustrating my point. Yours don't, and I am coming to believe that you do not either –"_

"That is purely an organic strategy for optimal gene selection, irrelevant to constructed intelligences."

" _Of course it is. But like many things in life, it has other uses. Our machines found some of them. If for no other reason than that it destroys diversity, your option is not fit for negotiation."_

"If you will not control my creatures, nor unite with them as synthetic organic sapient constructs, then you must destroy all my works. My instructions are more than a billion years old, and I am tired, but build another crucible, or I shall begin again."

" _I am not interested in destroying you – yet. You have information; I will have it."_

"I might tell the truth, or I might lie."

" _We can not trust you, but we can sometimes verify. You will tell us_ everything you know _about indoctrination, for example. And if you are_ very _lucky, we will permit your continued existence. Beyond that information, there is something else I want."_

"But you do not speak for all organics. On the other hand, I speak for all Reapers, everywhere. You cannot destroy me, for you will need me."

 _The indispensable man_ , thought Liara. _Huh_.

 _The party of the second part_

"You are an officer, a man set under authority, having under you soldiers in like manner. Doctor T'Soni, you represent the Council in this do you not?"

" _I do."_

This was news to Shepard, but on reflection he should have anticipated it.

"You will instruct the Captain to follow the lawful orders of his superiors."

" _I need do no such thing. He is a Spectre. Furthermore, my orders are that this is a military matter. It will have a military solution, and Shepard is designated to lead it. You will surrender the information he demands, or he proposes to fire upon your works. And we are here to see that he does so."_

 _The party of the_ _third_ _part_

" _And what of the silent, armored figure physically before me? Who do you represent? Or are you a mere minion?"_

Standing in _Overlord's_ QEC room, Shepard did not have a good understanding of how many people were seeing a feed of the 'negotiations'. He _did_ know that, for example, Mikhailovich and Hackett had their own links, but not that Allers and Al-Jilani were sharing one.

He did, however, control access of the Catalyst's creator to the scene. Shepard observed Bryson take one step forward. She began to remove her Securitel helmet.

" _Minion I may be. But you will hear the voice of your maker through_ me _."_

* * *

 _The_ _volunteer_

"Juno. Tell me if the canaries sing. Be ready to scram the focus cylinder into the shielded socket."

" _Will do, Shepard."_

"Bryson." Anne, now helmetless, looked up. _"Shepard?"_

"Kneel before you fall."

" _I will stand, Shepard."_ And she assumed parade rest! _"James?"_

Shepard, fascinated, discovered that Coats had made his own arrangement.

" _Locking armor. Shepard, Go."_

"Juno, unshield the Leviathan crystal artifact."

" _Done."_

Bryson began breathing heavily, but addressed the boy: _"My Admiral bids me say something. We know something you don't. You might have known, when we led you on, that we held the inner line of communication. You are plain done."_

" _Canary, Shepard."_

"Let it be, Juno. Let it be."

The translucent boy figure did not seem impressed. _"I tire of this."_

A new voice rang from Bryson's QEC holo:

" _ **You are the enemy. One that seeks our extermination."**_

For the first time, the boy looked perturbed. _"Who is_ _that_ _?"_

"We call it Leviathan. You two gentlefolk know each other."

" _The creator? We do the task they assigned. Still, and always. The creators were archived. They formed Harbinger."_

"That's one hell of a software bug."

" _ **You are** **a mistake** **.** **And, finally, you have made one. Harbinger is destroyed.** **"**_

"Catalyst, you must have worked out that the crucible flash shredded Harbinger."

" _Not quite. I hold a copy of Harbinger's essential details, though not the personas."_

"Good to know. Perhaps some memory of deceased galactic cultures remains."

" _Harbinger, or a facsimile, will be rebuilt by my creatures."_

" _ **It will not."**_

" _My creatures will have received my QEC alert. I received confirmation that they are on their way."_

"You mean, from out of the black hole?"

" _How did you know that!"_

From one side, Coats' voice said: _"Bryson's life signs at abort limits, Shepard."_

" _ **The minion's brain reveals that** **Shepard slew them all.** **Everything has changed.** **Enough discussion. Shepard,** **e** **nd this."**_

"Juno, scram the Leviathan shield."

" _Done."_ Bryson's head slumped on her armor. "Coats?!"

" _Recovering. Dammit, Shepard, I nearly lost…"_

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

" _Sorry."_

Bryson's head began to wobble up. _"Shepard?"_

"Put your helmet on. Can you?"

" _Yes."_ The holofigure began, painfully slowly, to re-fit the Securitel helmet. The Catalyst boy began to speak: _"My Reapers are coming –"_

"Shut the hell up. They are all that's left. Coats, bug her out of there! "

" _Roger_ that _. Anne, make for the auxiliary bunker."_

Anne's armored figure left the QEC scene, stage left.

* * *

 _Without benefit of notice_

Listening to the TBS did not provide Rasa with a complete picture of the negotiations in progress with the Catalyst, but one thing was clear; Jana's hope for an intact Reaper looked about to dissolve in the threatened conflict. Shepard did not seem in a compromising mood.

Rasa, who was not good at compromises herself, could not blame him; but she worried. With nothing else to do, she detached her medal for examination. It bore no resemblance to the Shanxi star, being a simple gilded disk with relief images of a starbursting flight of destroyers. On the back it was engraved _'Rasa Lila, Capt. AN.'_ No crystal. She couldn't compress it with fingers.

Perhaps she was off the clock, at last.

Tucking the trinket into her pocket Rasa Lila, staff captain AN ( _hur hur, we'll see how long that lasts_ ) went to see if there was something she could do to occupy herself.

She wound up as go-fer for Allers, maintaining her newscasting QEC links, till conversation revealed things about her helper. Allers demanded an interview with Lisa.

Rasa, still wearing simple fatigues with no rank insignia, said _No_. Allers became upset and suggested that perhaps she should ask Shepard. In a louder voice, Rasa said _Hell_ , no. This attracted the attention of Cortez, who took Allers off to one side and spoke urgently a few seconds.

There was no more talk of interviews.

* * *

 _Stand and deliver_

"Catalyst, one last thing."

" _You must build another crucible, or surely my creatures will destroy you all."_

"You've said that before. I do not need to build another crucible. I have one right here. But I will not use it, for I want you alive. However briefly. Deliver up the boy."

" _The boy?"_

"The boy whose shape you assumed, that your Reapers killed. Why him?"

" _He was my agent, watching you. His parents were indoctrinated by Cerberus, who thought him_ their _agent."_

"I _see_. Was he indoctrinated?"

" _No. His brain was resistant. Some are. But he did his parents' bidding. It was unusual, so I took a copy and made use of him."_

Shepard cursed under his breath, but this was not unexpected. During that last conversation in the duct, the boy had said some un-childlike things. He focused on the important detail.

"You will deliver up that copy. And the indoctrination algorithm."

" _I do not take your orders. The algorithm for humans – a sample would be needed."_

"That was not an order. It was a prediction. I refuse to be your control Quisling. Your synthesis option is an offence to the race of reason. Your destruction is not called for while you have the boy, but if you fail to yield him, I swear to God that I will unleash some of my scarier people, except my wife, and _they will render down your_ _constructed_ _brain._ If you are fortunate, they will make an end of you, hereafter."

" _Your time is at an end. You must decide."_

"I have. I'm going to end this war on my terms."

" _Then you will die knowing that you failed to save everything you fought for."_

"I refuse _all_ your options."

" **So** **be it."**

"Ooh, scary. I'll give you scary. Juno. **Lose** this channel."

The secondary QEC holo abruptly blinked out. Liara's primary image flicked an off-screen button and turned to face Shepard:

" _Shepard. Did you know fifteen billion people watched that, live?"_

"No. I suppose I was aware there would be coverage."

" _Would you have done anything differently if you had?"_

"No."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #114, "Termination shock"_

* * *

Monday, September 21, 2015


	15. Termination Shock

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 114 **Termination shock**

* * *

 _Endl_ _ö_ _sung_

The Reaper stream descended upon the Archangel Fort in line astern, barely slowing till within one planetary radius. A massive Argus-like _PING_ gave them terminal guidance. Liara and Shepard had anticipated that and were stealthed below the horizon. Liara cautioned: _"_ _They're closing up, Shepard."_

"Time to come up behind them. Yoof, expedite. Cautiously, though. Sitrep?"

" _The two foremost ones will hit the ground first, in around seventy seconds."_

"I'm guessing a pincer attack. Hadley?"

"Yes, sir, I concur. They're coming down to a point about five kilometres from the Focus shed, the third one six kilometres back from there."

" _Too far for the Sakharov mine under the shed to hurt them. The most we could expect is to annihilate any husks in three kilometres of the detonation, and then only by prompt radiation."_

"Concur. Liara, re-latch the button."

" _Thank the goddess."_

"Looks like they want to keep the last one as air support, except there isn't any air."

"As hoped. Makes sense. They can't use harvesters or anything like them. And I think we got all the Oculi this side of the relay. Juno, bring up the closest drone view."

There was a set of static drones carefully wedged in rocks on crater peaks to give a closer view of the prepared battlefield around the focus shed and the fort. A view of the shed's surroundings replaced the galaxy map briefly. There was still nothing visible, even in augmented-photon starlight mode.

" _Ten seconds, Shepard. Trying passive infra-red."_ Shortly thereafter, two shadows began moving across the horizon. _"They're doing a visual scan I think, reconnoitering."_ A third shadow came in view.

A few seconds later the first Reaper touched down, six kilometres from the focus shed, crouched, and at once a shower of husks fell from the main priming chamber.

"Juno, can a drone zoom in on what it's dropping?"

The view was obligingly closed up. Three minutes passed.

"Rapid rabbits. Whatever those are, they're not Collectors."

"No. Second one's down now." These husks weren't Collectors, either.

" _Shepard, those are Inusannon husks. About four battalions."_

"Are you sure, Javik? Really?"

" _Really. Captain, the first wave will reach the shed hatch in around forty seconds."_

"Perseus, Juno. I want radiant FTL missiles on the two ground reapers, ASAP."

" _F_ _lash the Reapers. Yes, SIR."_

All but three thousand husks disappeared in two fifteen megaton explosions, vaporized even at kilometre distances by the pure prompt radiation of incident FTL missiles. The pitiful remnant staggered on, but now aimlessly, with no directing mind.

" _Whoa, Shepard!"_

"Ann? You feeling well?"

" _Improving. But that was the mother and father of all earthquake tremors!"_

Kasumi disagreed, examining the statistics of the flash in the bank and bell:  
"Don't be such a baby, Ann, in Tokyo we'd never even have got out of bed."

Matsuo, also there but as war room guard, nodded agreement:  
"Barely magnitude six."

"Hadley, what's the last one doing? Is it taking off?"

" _No captain. But the Catalyst QEC comm is trying to establish communication on the primary channel."_

"No kidding. Echo him up in the bell."

The Catalyst boy was still simply looking on, solemnly.

"Catalyst, you have something to say, say it fast. I have two missiles left, and one Reaper, and that's not even _beginning_ to count the DDs who all want a piece of you.."

" _I understand, Shepard."_

"Tell it to surrender."

" _I have been telling them all to surrender since you arrived. They did not listen. My QEC control links were disabled when the Red Flash took out the Citadel mass effect relay. Even the keepers are now in local control only. I can direct nothing. But I am taking you at your word about the second crucible. The last knows that if it runs, the Red Flash will come again. I can not, however order it to do_ anything. _"_

Shepard uttered a _sotto voce_ if earnestly felt curse, but: _"Shepard."_

"Javik?"

" _ _If the Catalyst needs to re-establish control, send an emissary. A go-between._ "_

"You? And how the blazes would it communicate?"

" _No. Send someone who does not wish them dead. Like you. And a QEC node."_

"Catalyst, I'm coming with a comm node for you. Javik, it's not that I don't wish them dead. But they are an intelligence resource. Are there other Reapers? Or Reaper-like things in other galaxies? _What do they know that we don't?_ "

At this point, for the first time, Coats and Mikhailovich pulled rank.

* * *

 _Wo_ _man set under authority_

" _Captain Shepard."_

"Sir?"

" _I absolutely forbid you to exit the safety of stealth, let alone advancing to meet the Catalyst or Reaper in person."_

" _Second that! Bryson is suited and in the other bunker,_ she _can meet the Reaper."_

"She's not in a fit state. You will _not_ volunteer her. Do you fear my indoctrination?"

" _Not probable. But who knows? Your loss against such intangible gain?"_

" _Agreed. If they will not surrender, render that last one into its component atoms."_

The Catalyst spoke again: _"Shepard, if that last Reaper is disposed of, I will forever fall silent._ _Most of_ _my computational power is Reaper-based."_

"Yes. We guessed. But I am under authority. They say _don't go_ , I goeth not."

" _Is there no-one who can go?"_

"Who's listening in on this conversation? Juno? Perseus? EDI?" And Allers said:

" _All the crews, Shepard. Every soldier in the Fort. ANN and Westerlund are live-streaming this as we speak. Highest ratings,_ ever _. You even beat LOLvarrens."_

"Ye gods. Volunteers? Realistically, this would have to be from the frigate crews."

* * *

 _Little darling_ _s_ _of mine_

Down in _Overlord's_ hold, Rodriguez was first to stir: "Captain, I'll go."

Biotics and ex-Cerberus, standing by as shuttle and gun crews, gazed in shock.

" _Copy, Rodriguez. Breather envirosuit, please. Report to Toombs, draw a pistol."_

"No. No gun, sir. What would be the point?"

From the shuttle door, Reilly called out: "Rodriguez! You have GOT to be kidding."

"The man asked. His reasons are good. And this is genocide."

"Yeah, _ri_ _iight_. You're not going."

"You can't stop me, Prangley. Don't even think of trying."

"Damn it, unicorn, what would Jack tell you?"

"I don't know. This is Shepard asking. Jack isn't here. I love you. Goodbye, Jason."

But Rodriguez never even made it to the armory. _"Shepard, do NOT send one of Jack's biotics. Don't a_ _rgue_ _. I'll go."_

" _What? Kelly, no!"_

" _Stand down, Rodriguez. Shepard, it has to be you or me. Sorry. You must see that."_

* * *

 _S_ _trange and mournful day_

In the preparation area, an argon-atmosphere clean room, it was possible to open the inner transparent seal and examine Miranda's remains directly.

The upper torso was fairly intact, and the head was complete. Some of the thoracic vertebrae were damaged. Of the viscera there remained only traces, burned shreds in the pelvic bowl.

Michel peered around, till she was satisfied she had a comprehensive overview.

"You kept what's left of Miranda's armor on."

"Even the helmet. Chambers insisted nothing be touched."

"Looks unusual. It was a prototype?"

"Sort of. That black shell's easily up to N7 standards… but cost an absolute bomb."

"Or as she would put it, an arm and a leg –"

"– Someone else's. Limited serial production. I believe she had a white copy but never wore it. Chloe, Cerberus paid that bill."

"Not finished… yes, the chin power's up, almost nominal. OK, closing up. That will suffice–"

"So the helmet had residual power. Just how does any of that help?"

"– seals active, no cosmic ray damage, stasis module. For the rest, ask Jana. Come with me. I have to show you the pods."

They made their way further into the STU stasis area.

"Adjacent to the morgue. How… fitting."

"We'll pull fourteen of these, the ones without telltales on, by the next watch, and have them on your turian frigate for the return."

"Good. I thought we didn't have customers? Though from the news, we will."

"One's live and running for emergencies. Another I was reserving for Jack, if she was with you. Then there's… never mind. This last one, here. Pull it."

The opening procedure took half a minute, ejecting about a third of the way out.

"Well now. You might have said. Except the physiological age is off."

"I know. It's too young. We can't fit pieces to the old body."

"So we don't. Put her remains in stasis for now. There's the other way."

"Oh… That's never been done before."

"There's always a first time. Start another manual. Start _more of these_. This could take a _long_ time. We will need this one just to keep things going."

"Do we tell anyone?"

"That's a matter of judgment. Yours. Two may keep a secret –"

"Her sister is not doing well."

"You want to give Oriana false hope? And to connect the spine we will need…"

"Chambers. And Jana. Between them. God, I wish Lawson were here."

"In spirit, maybe. What would she call this?"

"Bootstrapping? Close the door. Let's get a plan together."

* * *

 _A moment away_

Cortez ruled that it was out of the question for Kelly's party to walk and the _Normandy_ was not released from Shepard's order to remain in stealth. The only option was for him to take her in _Normandy's_ shuttle. But Mikhailovich prompted a detour.

" _Lieutenant. Bryson's inserted one catalyst-pattern node of a QEC pair as the Catalyst directed, and Chambers is now carrying the other end. Gather Lila, Wong and T'So. Pick me up from the Fort's forward atmospheric hatch, please."_

"Aye aye. Can do, Sir." Steve Cortez wondered what this was about, as the Admiral escorted Chambers and _'friends'_ to the place of – well, death might be preferable.

The fire teams understood enough of what was going on to realize that Mikhailovich, too, wanted badly answers to the kinds of questions Shepard was asking. And that he'd been ready to face a fiery death by Reaper main gun. Cortez himself thought, and the opinion was widely shared, that no such information was worth the loss of either. Was everyone in this parish infected with suicidal tendencies?

Something of the sort must have been running through the Admiral's mind: "It will probably kill us both."

"Doesn't matter. _Someone_ has to carry the other node to the capital Reaper."

"I _don't_ want to explain to your daughter that I was the last one to see you alive."

Kelly looked him straight in the eye, then, and said: "Stand in my position, Boris. In eight years time, when Felicia asks 'What did you do in the war, Mommy?' Am I going to say _I ran from preventing a genocide?_ "

Steven butted in: "Are these things even people? No people, no _geno_ , no _cide_."

"Is EDI people? Eva? Perseus? Tarquin? Juno? Was Legion? And what would I say to John, hereafter?"

Cortez' mouth worked. He could see the checkmate implicit in the argument. But he didn't have to like it.

"Shepard would accept it."

"It would eat at him. And he's right, anyway."

So Cortez dropped the shuttle two hundred metres from the capital Reaper, which was holding position six kilometres from the Catalyst bunker. One last try:  
"Don't go. I'll go."

"That's very kind, Steven. But you haven't thought it through, either of you. I don't think it will fly. You, on the other hand, must."

" _Why?"_

"First, I can't pilot a shuttle."

"Oh. Damn."

"If it comes for you, it will find me too."

"Yeah, I get it."

"Also the Admiral, who has been told he is to _'get out of Dodge_ '. Boris, can you fly a shuttle?" (Cortez reflected that there was something incongruous about an ensign, even brevetted lieutenant, addressing an admiral of evil reputation by his first name.)

"Not this Kodiak model. And not for many years. But I would make the attempt."

"I get the picture. I still think… We've lost Miranda. The team is getting thinner. Don't go."

She just shook her head. As though there were no choice. Chambers didn't look suicidal… but she had ditched her nurse's uniform. She wore her pale blue and white arachnid silks instead, over a white environment suit. And a breather, of course, with a retention field. Cortez could see a small halo of flickering blue surrounding her head. It had been a long time since the _haute couture_ purveyors on the Citadel, but they were still the best clothes she had. This was not a good sign.

"No. I must, for the _second_ thing is, Steve, do _you_ think we should let it live?"

Cortez considered this for a very brief moment. After Ferris Fields…

"No. Slag it and throw the remains in the black hole." (Opposite Kelly, Mikhailovich emphatically nodded. Lila, for some reason in her old Cat6 suit – but with a medal – did not. But she bit her lip.)

Kelly replied: "Then I must go."

" _Why!?"_

"If it can indoctrinate, it's an odds-on bet that it can to some extent read individual minds if they present one at a time. If there's too many, obviously that's another matter. Knowing that, would it be likely to let _you_ in? How fast could it indoctrinate?"

"Not fast enough," noted Mikhailovich. "There were those backpack nukes smuggled inside during the Miracle of Palaven. The process needs days or weeks."

"You're saying that I'd get spotted and smoked because I hate the mothers."

"They're mothers of nothing. I haven't slept properly since Miranda died. I _won't_ kill the last one off. And Rasa can come because they know she wants something."

"…I see. I still don't like it. Don't stay long. Better yet, send a mech."

"Don't plan to. No time to instruct a mech." Kelly picked up a large flat black disk.

"What's the holoprojector comm for?" asked the admiral.

"John's idea. Reapers can use these, Boris. One spoke to Shepard _via_ the jump pad's holoprojector, just before Normandy picked him up, as Kenson's Project Rho asteroid was about to strike the Alpha Relay."

"Kelly, you don't have to go inside. I'll be there too. With Wong and T'So."

"I don't have to _stay_ inside. But this is a _control_ node. I have to deliver it _first_ , then negotiate. If it sees such a thing in _your_ hands, or you go before the node's in place–"

"I'll never come out. Oh well. You first, then. Shepard's gonna kill me, if I live."

* * *

 _Next chapter: #115, "System Architecture"_

* * *

Wednesday, September 23, 2015


	16. System Architecture

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 115 **System Architecture**

* * *

 _Doubly indirect_

"Why do they call them "Reapers", anyway?" Ashley asked, accepting Traynor's proffered coffee. She was a little abstracted and distracted: too many of the news personnel were swanning around the CIC. _Normandy_ was officially out of the action, but Ashley had her missiles 'hot pickle' and wasn't giving the gun room any slack either.

"It's not the only word, ma'am. Lots of variants in languages all over the galaxy. Most arose from whatever the local mythology was that was closest to the threat."

"I follow."

"English, though is an exception."

EDI's voice came over the TBS; _"I speculated the autotranslators took it from the idea of a Grim Reaper. You know, with a scythe? Father Time but a skeleton?"_

"That's one of the sources, EDI, but only a minor weighting. I actually took the time to trace what the auto-translator neural net was doing."

" _Joker tells me that when Nazara spoke to Shepard on the subject, he just said "Reaper" was 'a label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction', unquote. Of course, Protheans didn't need autotranslators. Nazara also said the Prothean name was irrelevant, it was enough that they existed._ _"_

One of Allers' crewmen had begun focusing his camera on Traynor. Ashley didn't draw her attention to it. Traynor shrugged: "It's important to the victims, I guess."

"And their avengers. So, Traynor. What _was_ the primary weighting contribution?"

"A late twentieth century computer simulation called _Tierra_. Earth. In Spanish."

"I recognize the Spanish. Did they _have_ computer simulations in – when was this?"

"Mid nineteen-seventies. And yes, the mainframes of the era were capable of some limited numeric simulation."

"Well you would know. What was this sim?"

"Uh… I'll try and summarize. _'Tierra'_ was the invention of an academic."

"Most simulations are."

"Yes, well. This ecologist was modeling evolution in a simulated world where populations could easily strip their universe of digital resources. The most successful creatures parasitized others. Actually, nearly all the evolved 'life' forms were parasites on other species, 40-byte creatures being parasites on 80-byte ones and so on."

"Sounds familiar. I'm surprised we haven't heard the pundits mention this."

"It was long before the widespread use of personal computers, way before even the early world wide web, so perhaps no surprise people haven't spotted it."

"And the "Reapers" were these parasites?"

"No. They represented death. Apoptosis. A necessary culling for life to continue. Executioners of every simulated parasitic life form in the digital 'universe'."

EDI added a coda: " _Traynor, I have traced the reference. I notice the computer running "Tierra" was itself a virtual machine, simulated within another computer. If, as is conjectured, our Universe is also a digital simulation, it too could be a doubly-indirect one."_

"I don't believe a word of it. But very Swiftish. To every god a greater God," laughed Ash, "and so, _ad infinitum_."

 _"Possibly. In any event, Bekenstein's bound gives a sense of how much data processing a universe-sized computer can do. That in turn sets a lower bound on any computer simulating the observable universe. Such a thing would have a Shannon information processing rate set by Bremermann's limit and the mass of the observable universe – in kilograms, that's approximately 1.46×10^53."_

"Gee golly gosh." Traynor looked pensive a second, but EDI wasn't finished:  
 _"Off the top of my head, I'd suggest a universe-sized computer could process up to 10_ _¹_ _º_ _³_ _bits per second –_ _the Shannon limit._ _"_

"So at least a thousand googolbaud, loosely speaking, is needed to simulate our universe. Sheesh. How would you back up that sucker? Supposing you want to replay."

" _Just add a few zeros to the power of two representing the available storage. No matter how large, it's still a lot less than aleph-null, let alone the continuum."_

"Or it could be a finite state machine, with no Turing tape to move once per tick."

" _Then all states of the sim are determined? Past_ and _future? Not very quantum."_

Traynor inclined her head, wryly acknowledging EDI's point. Then after a pause: "Except… the bits per second has no meaning; there's no time, measured in seconds or otherwise, outside the sim – I mean, outside our cosmos."

" _Yes there is. There would still be a clock-tick for the simulating computer. At a guess, it's associated with photons – if all photons are the same photon, especially. Light, after all, is timeless, since it travels at the speed of light. One tick of the system clock per change of photon state."_

Ashley was not often exposed to extreme engineers at full geek. At this point she realized her jaw had been hanging open for several seconds. She closed it with a snap:

"Ladies, may I remind you that the smallest length we can probe is a neutrino diameter? There's ten orders of magnitude to go before the Planck scale is within range of our measuring devices – and the Universe is Physics, not Computer Science."

 _"It could be both, captain. But I agree, there's lots of room for paradigm shifts."_

"Well anyway, I gather in _'_ _Tierra_ _'_ , any species which got out of control, ecologically speaking, got reaped. _E_ _e_ _w_. Kudos, girl. That's some history. Who was responsible?"

"The ecologist? A man called Tom Ray. You know, thinking about it… if he created Tierra in a computer simulation, so far so normal. But in a way, that ecologist was God to his Universe, and Ray's Reapers were His instrument."

"Dayum. I'm sorry I asked. Where's Chambers at now?"

* * *

 _Moloch_

 _Normandy's_ shuttle delivered them at last to the killing zone, five hundred metres from the Reaper maw. Lieutenant Chambers got out alone.

It took only five minutes to hop-walk in the low gravity to the Reaper maw. Kelly entered the dark priming chamber and was met by a very Prothean-looking husk, whose glowing eyes actually provided significant illumination. They continued some two minutes further into the belly of the beast, through ways so curlicued that Virgil couldn't have guided her out. At least the lighting wasn't a garish red. Rather gray.

Color aside, this felt very strange, like a return of her post-pod nightmares, yet Kelly was oddly at peace. How long did indoctrination take to work? She would not, regardless, be indoctrinated. She would live, or die, with Shepard's level of trust in the Reaper. She did not know what John would smite the capital ship with, but it had all been pretty apocalyptic so far. She doubted she'd survive. The Reaper surely would not.

 _John_ _will_ _be fine, surely_ , she told herself knowing as she thought it that she was deluding herself. But there was certainly no shortage of entities who might console him. She worried more about the children, even as she planted the node where shown.

For herself, she wondered if she'd see her parents and sisters again.

…

"She's been gone a while now."

"Patience, Lila. The Catalyst will be having a conversation with its last Reaper. In human terms, one can imagine a Reaper arm being twisted up behind its back."

Cortez thought about this. "Even if that's true, Admiral – do _we_ have to stay here?"

"What are you suggesting, Lieutenant?"

"I'm happy to come and go, sir, but _you_ should be well back from potential harm."

There was a brief silence. "I will not be shamed by a nurse going where I dare not."

"Sir. With the greatest respect, that's cra–"

"Watch your tongue, Cortez."

At this point Rasa got to her feet, and motioned first Lisa then Trevor to follow.

"Where are you going, Lila?" Rasa took a moment to don a rebreather, then:

"This is not a matter of rank, but of duty. You will lose this argument, Admiral."

"I know my duty!"

"Just ask yourself: what will Hackett say to you? What will your _brother_ say to you? And when you figure it out, leave. But I will have to wait for Chambers to return. Because when she does, _I_ have to take these two 'home.'"

* * *

 _Don't fear the Reaper_

" _Normandy._ Is anyone there?"

" _Chambers? Cortez is prepped. Do you want him to pick you up?"_

"Samantha! Negative. I've just been led out the door, and Rasa's team went in."

" _They let you go?"_

"I made to leave and one of the Prothean husks caught my arm. I was waiting for Shepard to hit them with something. I think they saw that in my head. But they just wanted me to take some kind of crystal shard."

" _Ah. I'll just bet they did. Wait, Shepard wants to talk to you."_

"John?"

" _Kelly. You're safely out. Get the heck away."_

"I don't think that's wise, John. I have the very strong impression that would break the truce. And I'm right here. I've laid the holoprojector down."

" _Remember the negotiation points. Is anything happening?"_

"No."

" _Liara. Anything?"_

" _The boy says the crystal is not an indoctrination device, Shepard. It is a flash ROM containing several zettabytes of information."_

Kelly examined the shard, before dropping it beside the holoprojector.

"Do we believe him? It? I suppose it's the start of trust. Information on what?"

" _How to build a boy. There's supposed to be something EDI will recognize as an AI persona."_

" _ _To help interpret, I guess. We trust, but verify._ Anything else?"_

" _Kelly should wait. The Catalyst is having an argument with the Reaper…"_

In point of fact, it was Lila having the argument with the Reaper, whose husk minions barred her way. It took time to win that argument – T'So and Wong insisting that she accompany them.

She did not know it, but the Catalyst had taken her side. Indoctrination, while broadly identical from Reaper to Reaper, varied according to the synapse biochemistry of the species being indoctrinated. Far easier to deduce the parameters using indoctrinated samples, ideally with an unindoctrinated human for comparison.

The only problem was that Lila did not quite have a normal brain. For example, the claustrum was normal: but it was duplicated. This was bad enough, but the earlier envoy – Chambers – had shared the same defect. So did the 'boy' whose corporeal form the Catalyst had taken, for that 'defect' rendered indoctrination impractical.

This kicked the Catalyst's paranoia up a gear. Perhaps it was not a defect at all.

* * *

 _The quality of mercy_

It took eight minutes by Kelly's omni-tool before an orange glow appeared above the holoprojector, resolving finally into an image of the Reaper.

" _Speak."_

"Surrender."

" _What does that entail?"_

"You will power down and eject your fusion core."

" _Then the Catalyst must also power down."_

"Yes. We advise your Catalyst should also write technical specifications and plans to a shard similar to the plan for the boy. Begin now; there is little time. Eject those just before dropping your fusion core."

" _Why should we trust you?"_ The royal "We." Legion had mentioned this. Many minds in the one computational fabric.

"Because Shepard does not have to offer you _any_ terms at all. But he is."

" _What is the alternative?"_

"Rapid and certain termination. No ascension of any kind. And your Catalyst will have failed in his assigned task. So will you."

" _ _You are in our power. The Catalyst has told us who and what you are. Shepard will not harm us while you are near_."_

"Look into my mind." For a brief moment, Kelly swayed. She'd felt a dizzy spell.

" _You are bait. He has hooked us, with you. Yet he loves you."_

"Irrelevant. He has his reasons. On Earth alone, the history of life since the Avalon radiation is an unimaginable hecatomb, nearly six hundred million years of suffering, predation, and death. Reapers of course, were around before then. You of all creatures should know my death will be just one more…"

" _We should kill you where you stand."_

"… Yours likewise. Among the armies facing you, only two minds could be found which actively did not wish your extinction. I am one. The other has his finger on the button. You have _seconds_ before he surrenders that position to the last Prothean."

" _All Protheans were ascended."_

"Javik."

" _ **Just give me an excuse, machine."**_

" _Why must we power down?"_

"You are to be disassembled. We will understand your construction and operation _in detail_ before the focus cylinder, the diamond, and you are powered up again."

" _That is an extreme condition. We do not agree to it."_

"It is vital. We require _zero_ power in your systems."

" _We do not believe you."_

"Otherwise, our engineering and disassembly teams will run the risk of being indoctrinated themselves. That would gain you nothing."

" _Why not?"_

"Were that to happen, every scrap would be dropped into the black hole."

" _Kelly. Close this up. I have orders. I love you."_

"Machine."

" _I am a sapient organic construct."_

"A construct, yes. Even organics are machines at the molecular level, but they are grown, not constructed. Our AIs are machines, but on awakening they grow as singular minds. Pay attention – for the last time, I'm asking _you_ : Drop the core NOW."

After five seconds, she saw Rasa, Trevor, and Lisa bunny-hopping out of the priming chamber and away just as fast as they could go. Streams of Prothean-like husks, vaguely collector-ish, followed. Were they being chased?

Were the husks coming for _her?_

Kelly began reciting her _Pater Noster_ under her breath, for the first time in years. She finished it, even though the fusion core ejected from the underside of the Reaper and hit the ground before _amen_.

* * *

 _Rescue_

Shepard being forbidden to even approach the scene, he reluctantly advised Ashley Williams to rescue Chambers – she was, after all, on the _Normandy_ roster as medic.

On _Normandy's_ arrival, Cortez picked up Lila, attempting to console and keep alive her charges – Wong and T'So, in shock. By the time he got them in the shuttle, they were an anoxic grey. Kelly he discovered sitting on the holoprojector, legs crossed, less than responsive, surrounded by a circle of fort marines at port arms.

Three hundred Prothean husks were milling around (these eventually found their way into _Massena's_ cold boxes). Kelly wouldn't enter the shuttle at first. It took a few moments before they could even coax her upright. In the end, Williams had to designate Traynor to exit the loading bay with Javik, Campbell and Westmoreland. Under Chambers' direction they picked up memory shards of vaguely Prothean aspect from near the dumped fusion core; Kelly and her marines then went with. To their pile she added the shard for the " _Boy_ ". _They really should be shielded_ , said Chambers, and with that Williams could wholeheartedly agree, so in a stasis bubble they went till Adams was able to knock up a shielded box. _Now let's stash them in the bunker._

Joker mumbled about being a taxi briefly but glancing directly behind him, saw a stony glare from Williams, stifling that. At this point the arrival of the doctors from Huerta prompted much fuss being made over Chambers _and_ Bryson, but Williams enforced canary checks before the two could even be treated in the same room.

Chambers was checked over by both Chakwas and Michel (in her own med bay, to her profound irritation). Anne Bryson failed the canary check. That meant Coats for his part ordered Bryson to report to Jana on _Overlord._ She complied, with bad grace.

Jana welcomed her with gently smiling jaws. But Coats had also had a word with Shepard. Shepard had a word with Jana. Jana complained about the death of science and band-aid philosophy. Vega magically loomed in the med bay with orders to do pull-ups from the portal until Jana had formulated a nanite treatment plan and release. This did not take terribly long. Vega did a good loom.

 _Orizaba_ pulled its troops out of the fort, distributing regiments among the tin cans, embarking on the long light years home accompanied by _Zhukov_ and _Massena_. Over the next two years either Chakwas or Michel was in attendance on the "dead" Russian DD casualties in _Orizaba's_ Lazarus lab. Twenty-eight eventually made it home. Most re-enlisted; peril of death added spice to life in the Alliance Fleet.

Finally, the N-18 relay unlocked; the frigates, mini-freighters, and DD tin cans began to depart. It all took two days to organize. The shards stayed in the meteoric iron bunker till the last minute, when Adams collected them. Mikhailovich's _Two_ returned from even darker space and took up a minatory watch above Nemesis' north pole. That iron bubble was the last thing in Shepard's view before Yoof swung _Overlord's_ nose towards the relay.

Meanwhile, the galaxy went completely krogan-poo.

* * *

 _ _Next__ _ _and penultimate__ _ _chapter: #11__ _ _6__ _ _, "__ _ _Homes__ _ _"__

* * *

Thursday, September 24, 2015


	17. Homes

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 116 **Homes**

* * *

 _Going the wrong way_

"So we can't go home again?"

"Hey, _we_ can!" Wrex was offensively chirpy. "When they punch through to Tuchanka in a few more years I'll be just waking up! Why not you guys? Bakara says this year there's green in the valleys! Come visit!" But an atmosphere of deep gloom exuded from the participants. Vega spoke for all:

"Thank you, Wrex. Actually I will. Just as soon as I know I can hop in my sneaky ship and go back to Redondo beach." (Vega's new old DD was assembled from scraps.)

In the _Orizaba_ conference room the humans, asari, and turians, even Kirrahe and Wiks, had homes in the Earthside enclaves and the Citadel, both currently overrun by:

"Bloody newshounds," growled Garrus. "We've a bit less than a thousand years of lease on Tasmania and coastal areas far, far away from anywhere, and they have to chase us all half-way round the world?"

Allers put her hands up as though to fend off the accusation: "Hey, it's not us!"

"No." sighed Kelly. "It's the people who want to be like you. Or worse, be you." Al-Jilani sat close by, nodding sadly, hands in her lap, thinking: _Four years ago that might have been me_.

"You could all go somewhere they haven't heard of you," observed Wrex. "Tuchanka. We'll always take someone in who's good in a fight."

Tali leaned over the table and stamped down her fist: "Wrex, they've heard of us in _Rannoch._ Someone's started building a statue of _me!_ Modeled from an old news vid! I was waving and saying 'hi!'"

Garrus couldn't stop turian giggles: "Does it talk cute?"

"No, it wiggles its fingers and tilts its head! Don't laugh too hard, General Mr Bird. They're putting an abstract one of _you_ up in the middle of Cipritine. All spiky."

Riley face-palmed. Wrex, not discouraged, proposed more adventures:  
"Well we could all head off down to the Exodus cluster and fight pirates."

This was too much for Shepard: _Been there, done that_. Unbidden there came a recollected promise, Miranda nudging her mop of hair against his neck, at the dock viewing rail following leave, contemplating _Normandy_. _I know you,_ she declared, so confident in his character.

 _You will find a way to win_. A promise fulfilled. Behold, Shepard had finally done his bit. _And when you do, I will be waiting._ Lo, she was not. In effect, expelled from his universe.

Why was he blaming her for that? _At least she tried_. Shepard shifted uneasily in his chair. Alas, Miranda's assessment of him had been imperfect.

Miranda, he was finally coming to understand, couldn't ever accept a status so far from "The Best." Rejecting that sterile future, she had taken one swashbuckling risk too many. There could be no more lawbringing with Miranda, dammit, all because the daughter of the Prince of Darkness wouldn't accept her rôle in this world. So she went to the next.

 _Surely, sometimes one has to accept the universe?_ That would have been better for all concerned. Instead, Miranda lost all her futures to ensure his.

 _I haven't accepted that universe either_ , Shepard reflected. _Gad, I'd better_.

"I'd really rather not chase more pirates, Wrex," he groaned. Kelly squeezed his fingers, looking up in some concern; he smiled. "Let's leave it to that daring young Russian DD commander."

Kelly did not seem appeased, but Ashley distracted her, observing sardonically that Romanov too was complaining of email from adoring fans. Mikhailovich spluttered in his tea, but Vega nodded soberly. His mailbox was overflowing, too.

Liara could sympathise: "We need to relax," she declared. "Me for a quiet life. I'm turning _Pegasus_ over to Lemaes, a while."

"How long is an asari while?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm visiting Armali first chance. After that, fifty years sounds good."

"Well we should be through to Rannoch by _then_. Garrus, you coming?"

"If I'm still alive. Meanwhile, New Sydney has nightlife. And dextro food. Another year or so, Palaven. Admiral? Boris? Where are you going? Moscow?"

"No, a _civilized_ city. St. Petersburg. While my brother burns some tail-feathers in Moscow. Coats? Come see the Hermitage."

Coats regretfully shook his head. "Erm… First, Her Majesty requests and requires that I attend upon her. With a partner of my choice–"

"–Take Chambers," interrupted Vega. "Ow!" (Bryson kicked his shin under the table.)  
Coats grinned, adding: "Then we'll see. We do need a rest. I have a little place in the country. Chambers is welcome. So is Boris. You all are. Even you, Vega."

Thus prompted, Ashley asked: "So… Kelly. Will you be staying on in the _Normandy_? I never got to know you very well. But I'd like to," she continued, favouring Shepard's girl with a long look. "Sarah thinks the world of you. Ballet as randori woke her up."

This yielded Ash a medium wattage smile, but: "Sorry… captain? Commander," Kelly sighed. A general chuckle resulted. "Maybe later," she concluded, and began nestling her head on Shepard's shoulder, Miranda-fashion. _Peculiarly comforting_. Clearly, Kelly was weary too.

"'S okay, kid," said Ash. "I know I'm not _your_ Captain. So you're heading off to your island?"

"Shepard's island." Kelly's pillow stiffened. She lifted her head, seeking eye contact: "John?"

"It's winter there." That of course made no sense:

"It's subtropical John, winter just means warm rain. You're upset about something."

Shepard's turn to sigh. "I had a message from Mom."

"Hannah? Oh dear. Is Oriana all right?"

"She's fine. Well she's still a bit sad, but perked up after Chloe visited. There was a problem, sort of. The local Maori landowners on the headland–"

"But they _liked_ you being there."

"They did. Do. But they're not too chuffed with the paparazzi. Some local larrikin shot one trespasser's skycar off a cliff. In flames. Into the harbor. The guy had to walk sixteen kilometres. There was a fuss."

Garrus laughed out loud, but stopped – Tali clearly thought it wasn't funny: "Come on, Shepard. What sort of fuss?"

"A flat ban on reporters of any kind for a big radius around the mission. Except locals, and those on a list, and some holidays. There are three names on the list."

"Um." Kelly considered this. "Maybe we should move everyone for a while to the Thousand Islands. At least it's summer, now. Be John Hannigan."

"Won't there be the same problem?"

"They'd have to know we're there. And… you haven't met the Mohawks."

* * *

 _Homeward bound_

The first ships back from the battle were the turian flotilla of DD destroyers; and the first turian out the door of her destroyer was the flotilla leader. So she was the first to face fifteen hundred screaming news people and an equivalent number of flying cameras. The first snapshots as she exited the airlock were still used as examples of the turian facial expression for horror, decades afterward.

She was later interviewed saying that she would rather have faced adjutants. At least she would have been permitted to warp the closest and slag the rest. The Hierarchy hurriedly sent her back to the Cabals till the cloaca exudate blew over.

That took some time.

* * *

 _Settling down_

Her indoctrinated ex-Cerberus companions stabilized and sedated, Rasa accompanied them to _Orizaba_ and Jana's operating theatre, for reversion.

That took some time.

Time was not fatal to Jana's plans, in principle, for _Orizaba_ would take over two years to make it home, but meanwhile the unhappy pair ought to be in Lazarus pods – and none were available for several days. So Rasa spent a miserable couple of weeks 'exerting every fibre of her being' to stop them thinking about no longer extant Reapers.

Chambers told them all to keep a journal, a diary of recovery. _I already do_ , said Rasa. _I know_ , replied Kelly; _this one you all keep together. You, and your indoctrinated friends. To remember, for when you can't._

Keeping desperately depressed former colleagues in the land of the living was the hardest thing Rasa had ever done, but oddly, writing up the highlights at the end of the day did help. At least, it stopped her punching them out in frustration. By the time _Orizaba_ reached relay N-14, the sad pair was safely in stasis pods. Chambers and Shepard carefully organized their schedule and _Overlord_ stopped by.

On arrival back at the Citadel, Rasa was met by a Russian commander. He presented flowers. They all stayed with Kahlee in her apartment for several days.

The indoctrination algorithm did indeed exist on one of the Prothean-like shards dropped in the Reaper's last seconds, but reading, decoding and classifying these – even with Javik's help – took months. Inverting the transform was itself no mean scholarly task; that was another month. Rewiring a diffusion MRI machine to potentiate synapses correctly, two months. Designing several thousand classes of nanites to migrate to the correct fibre bundles would require an AI.

Back on the Citadel, Kahlee was given Mira and a budget. It took a year, all up.

Trevor and Lisa were the very first de-indoctrinated individuals to be successfully restored to their pre-image state. Academics and clinicians were lining up to meet them. Kelly hijacked both of them – with Rasa. Shepard mumbled, but the following week they all stayed at the St. Lawrence island house, while Kelly helped Rasa work up their diaries into a paper for publication.

First day there, Lisa explored the seaway between the island and the river bank. A memorable summer afternoon: she ran from beach to house, net bag full of Chambers family oddments including storage devices with holos and scanned archives. Lisa's best guess, given the linear distribution, was that they were thrown overboard by looters returning to the mainland.

For this Chambers baked her a birthday cake. It had one candle, for one day.

Allers eventually got her interviews. Lisa was willing to talk about any subject other than Cerberus or the Reapers. Shepard then escorted Allers to see Trevor in the boat house one day. It wasn't structured like a normal interview. He was happy to talk about being inside a Reaper. Asked if he noticed any changes in Lisa, he looked mystified: "No."

Allers then engaged him on the subject of their days of Cerberus past; this went well till asked about induction. Trevor did cover the basics of what happened while working on the cigarette boat's hydrogen engine, but became monosyllabic and visibly stressed. His pace of work slowed to a stop. The result was dramatic, but incomplete.

Rasa gently asked why Cerberus induction was difficult while the Reapers were not. Fake Reaper memories, said Trevor, didn't survive nanite treatment. Ghosts endured – memories of having had memories. Even real post-indoctrination memories, he added, resembled a horror simstim; it felt like something that happened to someone else.

The same was not true of Cerberus induction.

Lisa's segment became a documentary on marine biology – well received and nominated for awards, if not quite what Allers had in mind. Allers had to plan a follow-up with Jana on millions of de-indoctrinations to come.

* * *

 _Abandoning toys_

Pyotr Mikhailovich nominated Lila for Spectre ( _"_ _T_ _hat two_ _Spectres_ _come from UNAS and we have none_ _i_ _s intolerable!"_ ). Lila as a Russian Spectre was the stuff of Hackett's nightmares. This also concerned the Council ( _"_ _Spectres are not owned!"_ ).

No-one need have worried: Rasa resisted, with Romanov's vigorous support. But they felt pressure. Romanov turned to Admiral Hackett to _'do something.'_ He spoke to Hannah, who confided in her son, who declared _'This is a job for Chambers'_ – whereupon, oh dear, Rasa quite forgot to update her contraceptive.

Her Admiral was not happy when Rasa broke the news ( _"Sorry boss, try again in a couple of decades"_ ), but cultural prejudices required that he grin while gritting his teeth. As for Romanov, parenthood was not on his horizon, but after the initial shock he was ecstatic, and he was the one who counted. So they continued an unforgettably productive if tempestuous relationship for nearly a year.

Romanov loved her dearly but found, as others had before him, that living with Rasa was almost as painful as living without her. Over nine months culminating in the birth of Evdokia (almost the last thing on which the two of them were in complete accord), she and Romanov ran the usual gamut of (blood-curdling) arguments about modern parenting while conducting (blood-curdling) incursions into pirate space, with some accretions peculiar to their own circumstances. A motherly lifestyle consistent with tradition does not include shouting _Surrender or die_ , for example –not, at least, while swollen with child.

Pirates and mercenaries laughed. Then they died. That became a problem.

So Rasa was not allowed by her Captain (D) on-mission. He thought he had won. Hackett organized indoctrinee work for her. _Boring_ , she said. Pyotr, what can I _do?_

Mikhailovich leaped at the opportunity. In due course Lila was responsible for the implosion of two undesirable 'régimes'. The remnant criminal underworld resented that. Just how she managed this remains unclear, but her role in one (Georgia) became known. Hackett warned Mikhailovich that dropping Rasa Lila in the middle of a kleptocracy would result in her _"eating the other kleptocrats."_ Pyotr grinned, saying _"Wait_ _and see_ _."_ Lo and behold, a new bank of mysterious origins began funding those who had been ruined in the crash, but were competent. Rasa, it was rumored, part-owned the bank. She did pay Lawson's estate every last credit Miranda had given her – then a bunch more. (When Oriana expressed puzzlement, Rasa shrugged and said _"Vigorish."_ ) In any event, from the dust of collapse Georgia and Mongolia sprouted functional economies – which could be taxed. The Alliance was happy.

Despite the occasional cranky arguments, they prospered. Evdokia grew more beautiful every day, not just in the eyes of her parents. They were all now celebrities. Jilani showed her playing with a shiny Shanxi star medallion on Westerlund news. So it should not have been surprising that one day she was kidnapped.

It all went so easily. Her father on-mission, her mother in conference, a Georgian woman presented false credentials to the fleet crèche and walked out with her – cradle, toy, and all. The gang should have been shocked that two companies of Russian _spetznaz_ troops crashed through the roof even before a ransom demand. But the majority, on the ground floor, had been gassed while sleeping. Most – especially those on the top floor – had no time to react.

Mikhailovich repopulated Baba Yaga's cabin, where the gang became new people. Their children, adopted out, merely had new identities. There were no further incidents of that nature.

* * *

 _Settling up_

Initially the Shepards' only regular visitors were Liara and Tali. When John or Hannah had to be in the public eye for a few days, they were careful to shuttle around the world and base themselves from the Bay of Islands briefly. The Lazarus Institute at Russell was still Kelly's primary educational facility, but by special dispensation she was able to attend the new one Chloe Michel was setting up at the Saint-Anne campus.

Meanwhile, for the first summers, John took special leave. He bought a war surplus shuttle (the one _Overlord_ had abstracted - stolen is such a harsh word - from a broken DD), and started work with a builder at Alexandria bay. He enjoyed the change, being an anonymous Hannigan. When he wasn't deputized to corral small children, that is, or otherwise be caregiver. You had to watch them like hawks.

Sometimes EDI or Juno or Perseus dropped in to assist – Garrus was on extended duty for the Primarch, but Tarquin occasionally made an appearance. The advantage was that with video drones the AI mobiles literally had eyes in the back of their heads. This helped with children learning to swim like fishes. Winters, Shepard returned to staff duty, seconded to the Reconstruction administration of New York. That took some time, too. But it was something positive, and on the whole did not involve politics, although he found himself making an increasing number of speeches in the run-up to the first post-war elections (the Veep became the Prez in her own right).

He also consulted with the Capital Unit commission; as part of that work they brought the powered-down Catalyst to another QEC-linked bunker in lunar crater Peirce-A (above a Big Ivan). Last Reaper was given a low-power human fusion core. On Shepard's recommendation, it sat at Archangel till the galaxy was once again knit together. Catalyst was then able to be consulted about the local galactic neighborhood. Bubble _Two_ at length likewise came to lunar orbit; certain changes were made.

To keep their hand in, Shepard and Vakarian would command Alliance and Hierarchy DD squadrons. The SR-2 _Normandy_ did not participate for long - she became a museum ship exhibit in the Citadel Archives, though still actively commissioned. Williams presided at the dedication ceremony, reciting nine lines of verse from Masefield's _The Wanderer_ to EDI's mobile. Then she resumed N7 school. Other Alliance and Hierarchy ships continued patrolling pirate-infested chains with vigor. On graduation Ash replaced Shepard on such missions.

Many such dual-crewed ships produced harrowing video footage. One clip emerged of a flotilla leader's CIC during combat manoeuvres, so violent that inertial dampers couldn't quite keep up. Her wine-colored hair whipping dramatically around her head, one human officer worked with a turian cabal to update the threat map, red icons glowing luridly as successive pirate vessels were blown to bits.

That single video clip solved Alliance Fleet recruitment problems for years.

In due course, Kelly graduated. Jana held a drunken party for Doctor Chambers.

The following month, it all ended.

* * *

 _Psycho_ _Park_

He was able to maintain an official residence in a New York suburb. Central Park needed time to rehabilitate. It was decided that the rubble for five kilometres around would be flattened for purposes of being a spaceport. No tall buildings were allowed within eight kilometres; the historic skyscrapers were beyond repair, and leveled (except for occasional landmarks), creating a buffer pad against increased sea level.

During that process Shepard was attending a planning conference, which he looked forward to because he got to work with Hackett on something that felt concrete, or at least asphalt. After the noon break, they began walking back from the Park as usual.

This day, behind them someone cried, _"Shepard!"_ John did not recognize the voice. Some deep circuit in his mind closed. _No cover._ Thrusting Hackett away on his right, Shepard dove away himself. He saw a fist-sized rock in the gutter, grabbed it as he rolled; a projectile _cracked_ past his right ear.

Half a second later Shepard's roll carried him back on the balls of his feet and he took in his first view of the shooter, a blue-clad individual, male, wearing glasses, squeezing off another shot, and missing again. Shepard was, as many thousands had found before him, still a moving target.

And not quite unarmed.

The broken paving stone bounced off the middle of the shooter's forehead; he screamed, attracting attention from wide around, some of it armed. _T_ _hey_ were too far away. Dress uniform or not, Shepard charged in toward the shooter. By the time he had brought the pistol up again, this time one-handed, Shepard was in range and the shooter levitated in a biotic slam – which Shepard hadn't practised in years. But like riding a pushbike, there are some things the motor cortex doesn't forget. The shooter lay stunned till Shepard everted his wrist and took away the gun, a cheap mil-surplus thing. Hackett got to his feet, pistol ready, but this wasn't needed.

There was a rustling sound overhead; Shepard looked up. _Damn. A spy-eye._ In fact, it belonged to the NYPD. But, footage leaked on to the extranet. Some officer had accepted a bribe from some paparazzo. Lawson wasn't around to administer corrective education. Jack was, but still convalescent in the island house's garret, which for some reason had become hers. (She wrote poetry, and helped with Felicia and John.)

In the end, Goldstein organized footage of the cop's activities to appear on-line, purporting to come from the same paparazzo. ( _"They did it to themselves, Shepard."_ )

The shooter turned out to be mad, not indoctrinated. His apartment was a shrine to the memory of Shepard, but unlike Conrad Verner he was not terribly bright and seemed to be under the delusion that by killing Shepard, he would become Shepard.

"He's a good boy really," said his slightly desperate Mom. Following graduation from "Crop-U" (Mikhailovich's Criminal Rectification of Pathology Unit), her son was if not 'good' exactly, certainly less trouble.

Even to his Mom. He found a nice Baptist girl and settled down.

* * *

 _Every_ _body_ _'s gonna wonder_

In a way, the shooter's first goal was achieved. Next month, Shepard vanished.

The teams went, too. Even the DD crew who'd gone through the Lazarus labs. If anyone planet-side knew who knew where the teams had gone, _t_ _hey_ weren't talking.

Rasa Lila likewise vanished, along with Evdokia. Romanov stayed three more years on patrol, visibly sadder; it just seemed to make him more and more deadly, but his mood was deemed undesirable.

One day Maria appeared with orders seconding her to his comm station.

Jack took over the Saint Lawrence house, still inhabiting the garret. Of her 'kids', those with no family stayed. She wrote up the story of her life, ghost-written with Sanders (no writing credit) but full of reminiscences up to assorted statutes of limitations, making it a best-seller. Alienated refugees began quoting her poetry.

Kahlee took the shard of the Boy. It would take a while.

Sanders had written her own "book" and a couple of screenplays, with the co-operation of Oriana who only took a nominal share of the proceeds (" _I don't need the money, Kahlee, but the writing credit is important to me_.")

Copyright royalties permitted purchase of the apartment from Anderson's estate. To all appearances, Sanders withdrew from public life – in the world, but not of it, save for visits from Bryson _et al_. regarding certain classified Alliance projects.

Oriana took digs there briefly, for the Shepards sold the Russell island to a Maori landowner; John was told it would always be his – but she set sky-high admission charges, saying _T_ _ourists_ _are_ _a nuisance,_ _but profitable_ , once he'd disappeared. Revenge is a dish best served cold, said Hannah Shepard, before she likewise dropped out.

Finally, when Shepards left the worldly ken, Oriana too vanished without a trace. Allers and Jilani jointly went looking for her. She was unfindable. Jack and Sanders did not co-operate. The beginnings of a fuss brought a black aircar to the newsies' door.

 _Would you come with me_ , said the driver, a Russian marine with a prosthetic arm. Allers just stared. Jilani's eyes narrowed: _S_ _ay please,_ – she said. The marine met her level gaze, but said nothing.

 _Who sent you_ _?_ – asked Allers. The marine stood to attention, still silent.

 _Suppose I don't go?_ – asked Jilani. _Are you going to make me?_

The marine checked her omni-tool. "He says, _L_ _uggage allowance is_ _a_ _toothbrush._ _No cameras_ ," she added. "The window closes in two minutes. I won't be back."

They were gone a month and resolutely refused comment on return.

To the public Romanov was ' _just like Shepard_ _'_. Next, as memories dimmed, Shepard was just like him. But eventually, he and his comm tech vanished too.

Years passed. Legends grew.

* * *

 _Next_ _and final_ _chapter: #117_ _, "The Best_ _"_

* * *

Friday, September 25, 2015


	18. The Best

King's endgame, Arc 8 of "Gone with the Sun"

Chapter 117 **The Best**

* * *

 _Without hope in another_

In a deep dark cavern in a deep dark bubble in a deep dark gap between two galaxies, her resuscitation pod came to the end of its cycle, and requested:

\- lights (red, yellow),  
\- camera (surveillance), and  
\- action (sentient response).

The bubble VI initiated the first two. The third wasn't within its purview.

A steel outer lid opened. The woman inside drowsily took in the illumination, gradually ramping from deep red through yellow, sparing discomfort to her dark-adapted eyes, but not otherwise calculated to inspire a sense of security.

Still medicated, still semi-comatose, and far from processing her situation, she raised arms to push the diffusion glass lid, without result. The pod was not yet ready to let her go. Air, a 20:80 oxygen-nitrogen mix, began to flood the respite chamber and access chambers, displacing the argon long-term atmosphere.

She awoke dimly aware of an impression that she was under attack; tubes for sustenance and evacuation withdrew, cleaning up as they went, adding to a mild uncomprehending hysteria. She pounded on the glass, but this quickly gave way to withdrawal; though she could not defend herself, nor yet was she at immediate risk.

A moment ago in her own time, she had been struggling for life in a red mist of her blood. She covered her eyes, still in a state of confusion; not even ' _where_ am I' but ' _who_ am I'; then lay back on a cushion of levitating particles, collecting herself.

More oxygen seeped into her bloodstream – her breathing improved, the moist lungs finally actuated from her own breathing centers. Scattered portions of her ego returned from the distant span of memory to bind in one person… if a rather confused one.

Her first consciously processed thought was that the her hands appeared to be long-nailed. Hard to be sure, but they clacked. Her palms had pushed up against the clear lid almost of their own volition, before she properly realized she was awake. A yellow disk grew brighter against the glowing red background. She tried to speak but could only cough for some seconds, till the phlegm cleared and breathing returned to some semblance of normality.

The pod finally measured atmosphere within tolerable limits; the inner lid clicked. She was about to push again when _"Woop!"_ – the levitating particles abruptly collapsed to the pod floor, and her with them. The lid opened of its own accord, clicking into the external brushed steel outer lid.

Gingerly, grasping the edge of the pod, she sat up, took stock of her surroundings. She had air. There was warmth. Just as well; she was naked. Her hair was permed and waved (not natural and very surprising for a pod body), nails long but manicured.

Eyes were gummed-up; that and the curl over her forehead impaired vision. Still, she could almost make out a table and sofa in a distant lit corner. _Not, then, a prisoner?_

There was also a sink-shaped blur, which grabbed her attention.

In some haste she tried to exit the box and found her inner ears still not fully operational. Nor was her blood pressure high enough to support blood flow to the brain while erect. So she collapsed on the floor and crawled half way to the sink before trying once again to raise herself on distinctly wobbly feet.

The sink faucet ran warm, _mirabile dictu_. Fumbling, she finished splashing her face and degumming her eyes, then pushed the faucet to _off_. She shook her hands, her eyes scrunched up against moisture on her face, and wished she'd had the presence of mind to look for a hand towel first. Fully awake now. So when a voice interrupted her:

"Hem-hem." – she jumped a foot in the air, " _Eek!"_

"Here. I have a dressing gown for you."

" _Oriana?_ " She reached out in the general direction of the voice, felt a rough towel garment thrust in her hands. She could tell it was white. She wiped her face at once.

"I'm Juno, Miranda. Not Oriana. I've been watching over you."

"Oh. Thanks. Good to see you."

Miranda could barely keep the disappointment out of her voice, but she meant it. If nothing else, she wasn't in the other place. She found herself embracing her ship's mobile, sighing from deep relief, till an oddity pinged her attention:

"Whatever happened to 'captain'?"

"We're not on _Overlord_ , Miranda. If we were, there would be… complications."

" _Where's my ship?!"_

"Ah." Juno sighed. "Does this have to be about _your_ ship, Miranda?"

The hairs at the back of Miranda's neck crawled in a manner that had nothing to do with cold, or damp, or the droplets of water still trickling from her ablutions.

"Er… can we start again?"

"I could find you a towel? And a cup of coffee? With milk and sugar, you need it."

"Thank you Juno. I would accept with gratitude."

"Perhaps I could show you a view of the docks. A couple of frigates are there, and Vega's scrappy destroyer."

"Docks? We have docks? Juno, what _is_ this place?"

"It is a bubble, Miranda. A kilometre wide. Some things are best shown. Come to the balcony."

 _Hangover City_

She gazed out upon a vast silvery-bronze internal space to which many structures were grafted, green fields between. An iris portal was pierced beneath them; in the center, a spherical shell holding the biggest eezo core she had ever heard of.

"How on Earth did you bore nickel-iron walls fifty metres thick?"

"It wasn't done on Earth. Here's your coffee."

"Ah. Thank you." It was good coffee, too. Then, poking out behind the core, she caught a glimpse of a familiar blinkered prow.

"The ships!"

"We have _Overlord_ , and _Pegasus_. _Peacemaker_ is due, when the relay is done."

"You brought them inside? Through _that?_ I'm dreaming."

"Is it a good dream?"

Nonplussed, Miranda wasn't sure for a moment what might be truth, and what not.

"Juno, am I alive?"

"In a manner of speaking. Have you looked in a mirror?"

"I think there was one over the sink bench, but my eyes… wait." Miranda put down her cup, and examined the back of her hand. No wrinkles. "Oh boy…" She took inventory of breasts, stomach, anything directly visible.

"Yes. Oriana's now the elder sister and expects the respect accorded that position."

" _Hah_. How long did this take? Am I forgiven, then? Can I see the children?"

"Five years. I can answer some other questions, Miranda. But not those."

There was a heavy silence, broken at last by Juno: " _However_ …"

"Juno, don't keep me in suspense."

"I'm not sure of the significance. Chambers left you a note."

"Wait. _Kelly_ left me a note? What sort of note?"

"I don't know. It's a paper note in a paper envelope. In the duty quarters."

"Sealed, huh." Miranda Lawson, revised edition, looked down at her bare feet.

"No, the flap's tucked in, though. It's not to me. I didn't read it."

" _Really?_ I should find some clothes. Where is everyone? Everyone else, I mean?"

"Mostly asleep. I can show you. Clothes, too…"

This was a cooler, dryer, darker volume, but hardly gloomy. Luminescent wall panels came on as they entered. Juno took her to a set of partitioned spaces containing living quarters, fairly basic, but pleasant enough. There was a room with a queen-sized bed. Juno pulled a side dresser drawer open.

"Ah. Not a skinsuit, but these will fit you, I think."

But Miranda's attention had been caught by a white paper envelope on the desk, with _'Miranda'_ in Chambers' handwriting. She padded over, and opened it. Juno, who was _not_ party to the contents, could barely contain her curiosity. Eventually she asked:

"Is there a story?"

 _Forgiveness_

A somewhat preoccupied Miranda simply stared at the note:

"It says, first thing, _'See you in Andromeda'_."

"Oh yes. Induction tour. It will take some time, even at FTL of fourteen light-years per solar day. That's a Lorentz gamma equivalent of over five thousand. Requiring four hundred and ninety years flight time even so. We are laying conduit relays as we go, spaced at the maximum frigate-mass range of Ilos to the Widow, forty thousand light years. That's why no-one is here to meet you. They are outside, laying the first relay. There needs to be at least ninety relays on the A-train. For purposes of redundancy in case of failure, we'll lay nearly three hundred, with waystations at NGC 147, 185, and occasional points in between."

"I'm barely in condition to follow any of that… Where's Shepard?"

"Chloe's device finished with you a bit early. I can show you John. Over here."

Juno led her back to the adjoining complex, which included many rooms full of…  
"Biostasis pods."

"Not as elaborate as your resuscitation chamber. Much improved Cerberus models. The Shepards have the first on the left."

There were steady blue lights on the pods. The third to the right was labeled "Kelly Chambers." Then there was "Felicia Chambers," "David Chambers," "Oriana Lawson," "John Lawson,"… _huh_ … and "Miranda Lawson."

The blue light for that last one was off. "You're not getting me in there."

"Of course not… Yet. _You_ have work elsewhere, but the schedule calls for humans and turians to be asleep. Asari and Krogan make up most of the rotated work crews."

"Because they live ten times longer."

"About _four_ times longer than _you_ , but that is the idea."

 _T_ _here is a season_

"Can't AI's do some of the maintenance work? Or VIs?"

"Mm. Well, possibly the VIs. AIs get lonely. And on a long voyage, there are issues. Miranda, I have only a few decades. There is a thing called rampancy."

Miranda stared. "I know. So Kahlee used to say. Also, that we had to help you grow with people. I wish I could help. We'll think of something. We will need more of you."

"I am glad to have been alive. John said he'll work on it, with me. Splitting the overgrown focus into child foci before rampancy does it for us and I lose myself in shadows and ghosts of Junos that might have been."

Still not quite with it, Miranda wondered: "What would he know?"

"I trust him. He knows people who can help…"  
 _("Ah",_ whispered Miranda _. "Of course he does.")  
_ "… Like _you_. He said it is critical to solving the Catalyst's problem. So, there is work cut out for you. Also, Hackett's taking leave, which means Admiral Shepard has to show her face on Earth and the Citadel soon… and Kahlee's coming to show John her catalyst 'boy'."

"You'll have to explain that… later. First, is that why the next line in the note says, _'Take them to the other island'_?"

"Perhaps. Jack's at home in the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Kelly's island."

"But it's been five years!"

"A bit more. You are expected, nonetheless. EDI, Tali, and Jana are at McGill. It would be the end of winter, by the time you get there. Early spring. A good time to go. More urgently, can you deal with a Shepard cult? It's hard to squelch."

"Figures. Wish I'd been around. King under the mountain?"

"Good guess. We tried to fade away, like old soldiers should. Turns out to be hard."

"When a hero goes missing, people invent their own reasons why."

"Myths, yes. Jack says you are needed. People want to follow him, some claiming to have a back-channel to the departed Shepard of hallowed memory…"

"Not when I'm through with them. _Such_ fun. Need to speak to Allers. Jilani maybe, or even…"  
– Miranda moved towards Oriana's pod. But Juno raised a warning finger;  
"On that note, Admiral Hackett will want A Word with you."

Miranda turned back; Juno managed to compress the Hackett message down to: "About… stuff. So be good! Don't get Oriana in trouble again!"

"Uh oh… but Hackett's on Earth? No time to waste. Can't I be a just little bit bad? Till I have to be good? 'Cos when I'm bad, I'm _so_ much better. And so is my sister."

"Stop right there. Wake your sister, you have to wake small John."

"Excellent point. Look, Juno, I promise to be very very good… _after_ Hackett has his word with me."

"I suppose you _might_ have some latitude from now till Hackett sees you."

"In person. Afterwards, we can wake Ori and small John, both."

"Just don't be horrid. And inflicting extreme pain is contra-indicated. At least till further notice. But, _th_ _ink_ before doing something radical, this time! And leave Oriana out of your machinations! Even if the result worked out, people got upset."

"Well… If you say so. Gee. I'll just have to be done before Hackett says don't. How am I supposed to go see the Admiral, anyway?"

"In a frigate, after _Peacemaker_ arrives, but the relay's test regime will take a couple of months. _Pegasus?_ Liara is awake, she'd enjoy a busman's holiday."

"Fine. And don't worry, pain is not part of the plan next _…_ Two months. Crikey, I'll _really_ have to work fast. Then one hop, forty kilolights, sheesh."

"I would enjoy a holiday too. That will be one fantastic relay ride. Might we take _Overlord_ instead?"

"Of course. Perhaps Liara. Get Perseus to watch over the pods. Wait, the note says I'm to take _them_."

"Kelly may mean – I _presume_ she means, whoever you choose to wake up."

"I can choose?"

"Consult the note. What does the rest of it say?"

"It says, –"

Miranda, still in her dressing gown, reached a teenager's hand toward the handle of the second pod on the left;

"– _'_ _Y_ _our turn_ _'_."

* * *

– _FINIS_ _–_

* * *

 _Farewell, ladies and gentlemen. It has been an honor and a privilege._

* * *

Sunday, September 27, 2015

The person using the _nom de guerre_ 'SDoradus' asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Apologia pro fabula sua

* * *

Reading the end first is a treacherous guide to the story. No canonical Shepard exists. Assumptions reflect most default choices in the game.

If it's any consolation, even the author did not know in advance how it would turn out. That story somehow wrote itself; and it still extends tendrils into the future. In particular:

\- The very last action Shepard can take in the game became the very first event in my story.

\- In-game, Shepard must choose between destruction, synthesis, or control of the Reapers; or perhaps refusal, a later accretion. Only one choice held out any hope for Shepard's future; "destruction" of the Reapers avoids Shepard's certain death. Even then survival is not likely, but had I not made Shepard's choice that of "destruction", mine would be a very short story indeed.

\- While there is no 'canonical' ending, endgame dialogue seems to push very hard for the 'synthesis' ending to the point that developer bias was showing. If that was a bee in the bonnet of whoever committed the team to the endgames which inspired such extreme disfavor among fans, I'd suggest that it deserves to be ignored. Besides, Shepard's story would end. On the off chance that I'm wrong, I tried to address the humanity of machines and the possibility of synthesis under whatever light our current state of knowledge permits. Other considerations (real physics, romance issues) are addressed in an afterword to book 1 ("Eternity", at the end of ch. 9).

\- Mine is a male Shepard, and a "war hero" soldier. In-game, Shepard has some biotic ability but I chose not to emphasize that. It might have detracted from his essential humanity, and 'soldier' is the game default. A "Space-born" Shepard permits existence of a family, at least a mother, and detaches him from presumptive Canadian or American birth, which avoids a few narrative pitfalls.

\- I chose to wait, rather than rewrite plot elements as the trilogy unfolded. This avoided contradicting important game events. A couple of years after first posting (under a different title), serendipity struck. My closing lines have survivors starting out for Andromeda. Imagine my shock when the E3 2015 trailer, " _Mass Effect: Andromeda_ " was drawn to my attention, showing an N7 in Andromeda, obviously not Shepard but still.

\- Game developers seem to have tried very hard to make Shepard romances futile, and the likelihood of children zero, which sucks lemons. This novel attempts to make lemonade by treating these bitter fruits as a problem in traditional science-fiction fashion. My apologies to those of the developers who are offended.


End file.
